As a pastor, that very question has been on my heart and mind a lot lately. How do we grow as a church? Before we can answer that, and before I was able to come to something that resembled a conclusion, we must first define how we measure growth and what we deem acceptable growth. As a church that once was fairly large for our location and demographic and was more recently one of the smallest churches but with some signs of growth currently, the question has been asked many times: how do we grow as a church? In his book "The Kingdom Focused Church" Gene Mims identifies four faithful measures of church growth. Numerical growth: God's increase in the local church of attendance, membership, and baptisms. Spiritual transformation: God's work of changing unbelievers into believers, and continuing to change them so they are more like Christ. Ministry Expansion: This occurs when believers are transformed spiritually and pursue new ministry opportunities by the power of the Holy Spirit. Kingdom advance: God's constant work of expanding His kingdom through the local church as one person at a time around the world is reached for Christ. There are hundreds of churches in the modern age that are growing numerically, but exhibit no measurable growth in any other area. This begs the question, why are they growing in number but not in spiritual maturity? Why are there no new ministries taking place? Why do we not see the kingdom advancing in their community or globally? When it comes to church growth; true, deep, long lasting church growth, we must see all of these taking place. How does the Bible present this? In his great commission (Matthew 28:16-20) Jesus commands his disciples to go out to all of the nations making disciples. What does that look like? It means we go out with the message of hope and salvation in Jesus. As we do so, unbelievers come to know the truth and follow Christ. As that happens, they are sanctified by the Holy Spirit and grow into spiritual maturity, and in turn begin discipling others themselves. This process manifests itself in a growing number of believers, it manifests itself in believers growing closer to the Lord, it manifests itself in new ministries that strive to share the gospel through good works, it manifests itself in purposeful and intentional mission trips to take the Kingdom of God further. So when we ask ourselves, how can we grow our church? We must answer with the assurance of God to faithfully complete his work to center ourselves on making disciples and growing in spiritual maturity. If you have been at Good News lately, you have likely heard me use this phrase that so aptly applies. Maturation, then multiplication. |
Pastor MorganMorgan has been writing since middle school and worked for a year writing professionally as a news journalist for the Daily Tribune in Gallipolis. This blog is a chance for him to express his love for the Lord and all church related things through writing. Archives
December 2019
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