Wednesday, March 03, 2010

A Decrease in the Increase

I have been thinking about church life and church growth lately. I've been wondering about where my church is in the scheme of these two areas - church life and church growth. It would be safe to say that these two areas are on every pastor's mind when they think about their churches. We pastors take these two areas very seriously, even if we are at a loss on what that should look like at our church or how it should be developed, cultivated and practiced. Church life and growth is, in may ways, an enigma, an ever evolving and fluid process. With all my reading about such I come away, more often than not, with more ideas to add to my coffer but no less unsure on how to go about the process. 

I don't believe the church is to be static, and what I mean by that is that I don't believe that we are to reach a certain level and then stable off. If we are doing what we are called to be doing, if we, as a church and as individual Christians, and are actively reaching out to others, sharing the Gospel and having them become a part of out lives (and we a part of theirs), then the natural expectation is that the church will grow. Maybe not in leaps and bounds but it will see growth non-the-less. Right?

And yet, so many churches have become static, if not in fact decreasing in their numbers. There are a lot of reasons that explain the decreases and I have not the time, space or the expertise to go into those but they do include such things as cultural change, structural (church facilities and use of space), generational styles (worship, music, experiential), and, of course, relevancy (what the church is offering as ministry outreach and growth). But we must also add to that not by any means exhaustive list the church's complacency. Sometimes, quite simply, the church likes they way it is, the size it is, they way it has been doing things, etc, and has very little desire or motivation to adjust and change. The problem with that is that attitude will ultimately lead to, first, spiritual death and, second, physical death (numbers). It may take years but it will come.

I pastored a church that suffered from that attitude. It used to be a large church, several services, active programs but after a series of issues (pastoral appointments and disagreement over ministry purpose) they began to decline. When I arrived they were averaging in the 30's (a long way from over 700). The community has changed but the church was too slow to adjust to that change. Young families that were raised in the church moved away from the area, in part because of school issues and community changes, and left their parents and grandparents at the church. It was literally a dying church. But church life has a unique way of pushing itself up through the growing darkness and these older folks began to adjust their way of thinking. They began to look at their community differently, a community that was changing again, and they took the initiative to change and reach out. Unfortunately, it was too late and the church was closed down but not before it doubled in its attendance in the five months that I was there.

By point to that account is this: why must the church wait to find itself dying before it comes to the realization that it must approach ministry differently? Why does the onslaught of dying serve (sometimes) as the motivator to members to change from thinking "what's in it for me?" to "what's in it for them?"

I've asked these questions before in other blog posts. And I will probably ask them again in the future. But to stop asking these questions, to stop having discussions on such issues, would basically mean that we in the church have accepted the status quo and impending complacency and growing lukewarmness and ultimate death. The church, it's members, attenders, committees, and councils must keep asking these questions and discussing and looking for answers. The church is to be growing and if we are not, then the question should be ask, loud and clear, "Why aren't we?"

I close with the following from Ed Stetzer, church growth and missional guru, from a recent blog post.
Seems to be that churches must be on some powerful birth control. They are not reproducing. And I don't get why.
It's natural. It's normal. It's essential. And we all know how to do it. But somewhere along the way, church reproduction and multiplication became unusual or strange in North America. And I am not happy about it.
The Church is the most powerful institution in the world. Where no electricity and running water exist, you will still find a church that is planting churches. When governments grow corrupt and economies crash, the Church still stands and plants more churches. Nothing in the world and nothing in the last two millennia of history can compare to the Church. It advances best by exponential and explosive multiplying. But not here.
The Church matters. It is God's agent of change for the hopeless. It is how He delivers transformation to a hurting world. Through the Church, God unfurls the banner of mercy and announces the kingdom of grace. He has assembled the Church to tell and model the most important issue in life--how to spend all of eternity with God Himself.
God has chosen the Church to make known His multifaceted wisdom to all in authority (Eph. 3:10). Whether a power in the heavenly realm or an authority on the earth, the Church is where God rolls out His message. It is used by God to speak to the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, the hopeful and the hopeless.
We believe in the Church not only because of what we have seen, but because of what Christ can do next. He constantly amazes us at how lives are changed through the Church.
 Well said, Ed. What do you think? What should we be doing? Why aren't we doing it? Why aren't you?