5 Clues Your Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size

What happens when a church is healthy, yet the numbers stay in a holding pattern?

There are a lot of books, blog posts and seminars about how to assess and remove obstacles that hinder healthy growth. My church and I have been helped by many of them.

But is it ever possible that a church may have reached its optimal size? Is there a point at which pushing for greater numbers might be counterproductive to the life, health and effectiveness of a church?

And, if there is, how would we know that?

I struggled with that challenge for years. My story is detailed in The Grasshopper Myth, so I won’t go into it again, but one result of that struggle was that we realized our church is better, healthier and more effective at around 200 than we were at around 400.

200 is our optimal size (let’s call it our shoe size). For now anyway.

It’s not that we aimed for this size or plan to stay at this size. It’s just that this is where we seem to do our best work for now. And it may be that way for a long time.

But how does a church know what their shoe size is? And, if we have in fact reached that place, do we just sit and settle? What about growth?

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