| Home | Gonzalez and Richards Chapter Three >> |
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| Question Church Growth |
| Posted by Brian Beers at 7/10/2005 8:04:00 AM (0 comments left) |
| This past weekend my family went down to Oregon to visit a couple of friends of ours from college. Both of these friends attend (or don’t attend) the same church. They feel completely marginalized by the pastor’s emphasis on church growth. Both couples are struggling with a myriad of issues brought on by misguiding leadership. While we were down in Oregon our home church in Washington may have set an attendance record for our Sunday Morning service: 159. We normally run 90-110 and have room for 140 –of course “normal†was before a church across town began hemorrhaging Christians. This “other church†is also suffering from issues similar to our friends’ Oregon church. Both pastors have recently spent 40 days purposizing their churches. While I could spend a lot of time discussing how an obsession with growth is unnecessary and harmful, I would like to take a few moments to discuss the toll that growth –even healthy, natural growth takes on a church. |
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One of the key purposes of a church is fellowship. This means that those in church actually cultivate knowledge of one another. The— “Hi…I forget your name…†“John†“That’s right! Hi, John. How are you doing?†“Fine†“Great! See you next week.†—conversations are not fellowship. Fellowship is knowing Ted’s heartache over his brother, knowing that Elsie is approaching the anniversary of her son’s death, and rejoicing over how Sarah has grown in the Lord. This kind of knowledge of one another’s lives takes time—years. Sitting down for a 4-hour life-story episode cannot communicate the yawning chasm of uncertainty we all saw when we learned that Larry had cancer –again. We walked through that valley with him and his family the first time. Nobody needs to tell us it is tough. This kind of knowledge comes through time and vulnerability. Piece by piece we learn one another’s hopes and fears, strengths and character flaws. And this knowledge deepens our love for one another. And church growth hinders this knowledge of one another. The first hindrance is our natural defensiveness. For most folks it takes time to trust someone else. Blabbing one’s inner struggles to strangers indicates a need for help. So lots of new people coming into the church lowers the level of trust that people have for one another in the church. The core-members don’t know if they can trust the new people, and the new people don’t know if they can trust anyone. This means that people are less willing to be vulnerable. Who knows whether or not this new person is a malicious gossip. The second hindrance is the pastor’s humanity. He is a finite human being. He must delegate or be involved in every ministry in the church. It is difficult to delegate of the assimilation of new members. If the finite pastor spends his time thinking about the new members, he neglects the core-members. In a healthy, fellowshipping church, these core-members are the ones who have learned how to be vulnerable, the ones who know and love the other members, the template for what the new people will become. This is key. If a pastor wants to know how he is leading, he needs to look at lives of those who have been under his ministry the longest. If there is a common thread, it is the mark of his ministry. If fellowship is the mark of a healthy church, the new people need to learn to fellowship. Trustworthy fellowship must be cultivated ever more carefully in the core-members because it spreads from them to the new people. The pastor cannot instill it in the course of a new members class. This is the temptation, to see the new people as an opportunity to improve the church. The core-members invite new people into the safety and vulnerability of…prayer meeting. ! Prayer meeting was not my expected destination when I began this post. Two weeks ago I didn’t even go to prayer meeting. I had an excuse, Our pastor has recognized the dangers that a regular prayer meeting can fall prey to. He has moved us away from praying through a laundry list of ailments (the Baptist Rosary). He has led us to pray for the spiritual needs of people more than the healing of their ailments. My own dislike of prayer meeting was from a lack of personal prayer time. My wife pointed out that personal prayer time binds us to God, and corporate prayer time binds us to one another. And they aren’t substitutes for one another. This past Wednesday, following our return from Oregon, I gladly attended prayer meeting. My heart was prepared for the rich fellowship we would share. I heard our friends grieving over their church, and I thank God that our church is cultivating the love that marks those who believe in Christ Jesus. Corporate prayer undergirds every healthy church. When we don’t feel like caring for people, prayer is what changes our hearts. And prayer meeting is where that happens. |