The Church How Jesus Built It

Biblical Church Growth

Chapter 1 Searching for Faithfulness

1 .When you think of church growth what ideas or concepts come to mind

When I think of church growth numerical considerations obviously come into it , as well as the activities it undertakes to meet perceived needs in its area , but the New Testament concentrates upon the growth in spiritual life necessary for a Christian or church to come to maturity Unfortunately this does not always go alongside numerical growth . `The renewed interest in church growth .are important ' says Hans-Ruedi Weber , but he

then goes on to emphasize that what man sees as growth God might not . You can have increases in numbers attending services , but they are not necessarily growing in their understanding . In 2nd Peter 1 we are told :-

Don 't lose a minute building on what you 've been given , complementing

your basic faith with good character , spiritual understanding , alert discipline , passionate patience , reverent wonder , warm friendliness and generous love

each dimension fitting into and developing the others (The Message Peterson

That is a hard challenge to live up to , but unless Christians meet these requirements how can they and the church grow ? God 's gifts to his people are tremendous and continuous , but they demand a positive response on the part of those who claim him as Father

What criticisms of church growth have you read or heard ? Do you agree or disagree with them

Criticisms thrown at larger churches include the fact that they seem impersonal . Attending a service with 5 ,000 people will mean that it is an effort to meet with familiar faces each week . Another criticism is that they are only growing in number , but not in depth . I can recall a church where every week there were new people and conversions were frequent . The problem was that the whole church programme became geared towards nurturing these baby Christians and there was nothing for more mature Christians to feed on and eventually most of them left . There must be a balanced program to meet all needs . An occasional comment usually by people in a smaller church , is that it isn 't real growth but just a fad or that false teaching has brought it about e .g . those which preach that the more we give in monetary terms the more we will receive ( in monetary terms .These criticisms have some validity . You can feel lost in a very large congregation , but worship is a personal as well as a collective act . Go with a friend or deliberately agree to meet someone if that is what you want . I f it is felt that there is nothing for mature Christians cannot they do something about it themselves if the pastor feels he must spend his time feeding the babes in Christ . Or does the church perhaps need to appoint someone specially to look after one group or the other . Does it really mater if they leave a particular fellowship as long as they remain...