Better's Better than Bigger

"A healthy church will necessarily grow, but a growing church will not necessarily be healthy." As leaders of an organization, we have to be very much aware of the goals we have so that we can strive to reach them. I want our church leadership team to consider our goals very carefully together so that we can be very certain that our goals are Christ-pleasing and Kingdom-building. Each of us might have our own goals in mind for the church, but those goals cannot be helpful to the whole church body unless we can come together with agreement and channel our combined energies, passions, and resources to achieve common goals. I believe our overarching goals must be to 1) be a healthy church, and 2) be an effective disciple-making church. Truly, these goals are two sides of the same coin because they rely entirely on each other. How can we effectively disciple if we are not truly healthy? Likewise, how can we consider ourselves truly healthy if we are not effectively making disciples? (How to define these goals and how to pursue them will have to be dealt with more fully later.) Now, if you look around at the greater American church culture, you'll probably find, as I do, that there is a tremendous pressure on church leaders to grow their church organizations. Visible growth would seem to be the primary goal for some churches. "Seeker-sensitive" trends often flow from the drive toward and pursuit of getting more "buildings, bodies and bucks" (to use Bill Hull's language). That's one extreme of church goal-setting. I want to avoid this like the proverbial plague! As a counter-weight to that extreme mindset of focusing on the external (visitors) in order to build up the internal (the organization), there are other church leaders who think it noble and heroic to stay stagnant in growth because it's a sign that they are not compromising the truth or watering down the gospel - as if lack of growth was a sign of faithfulness! I don't know how you feel about that, but I say, "Nonsense!" This mindset is built on a faulty assumption that growth (especially rapid growth) must be the result of some leader selling out and scratching "itching ears" with empty preaching. Unless the apostle Peter was that kind of leader, the experience of the early church (as described in Acts 2) debunks this myth. So what's the proper and sane middle view? I contend that good church growth is the inevitable result of good church health. A healthy body grows the cells it needs to thrive and carry on with energy and vitality. A dangerously unhealthy body can grow, too, though (think of tumors or obesity). Growth, then, can't be the primary goal. We must set our eyes on the primary goal of being healthy with the confidence that good growth will naturally come. I don't use the word "naturally" to imply that it comes passively, but that it does come as a part of a God-designed process (a passive church would never be healthy, anyway!). So, can we agree that our primary pursuit has to be good health rather than growth? Can we also agree that church growth is beautiful, Christ-honoring, and desirable for His sake when it's brought about His way? Now it's your turn to share... Comments away!