Why won’t my church grow?!
Have you ever wondered about that? Many, maybe most pastors have.
After all, it’s not like we haven’t tried. And there are plenty of seemingly surefire ways to bring growth. Every day there’s another blog post with a list of Seven Reasons Why Some Churches Don’t Grow, or Eight Common Traits of Growing Churches, all backed by sound research and experience.
But do you know what we don’t have? A list of churches that didn’t make those seven mistakes, or did all of the eight things well, but still aren’t growing numerically. Like, maybe yours?
We only hear from the churches that are growing, which makes sense. No one wants to concentrate on negative results, and we all want to learn what we can from positive outcomes.
But if you pastor one of those other churches—one that seems to be doing all the right things, but is still not growing numerically—it can be very discouraging.
No Perfect Churches
Every church makes mistakes. Not just yours.
There are no perfect churches, not even the megachurch with mega-growth.
Certainly there are principles that will encourage growth, and behaviors that will inhibit it. Given everything we’ve learned over the last four decades of church growth studies, you’d have to be blind or intentionally ignorant not to see that.
But, despite all we know, one stubborn reality remains: there is no surefire method for numerical church growth. Period.
For some churches every minor mistake seems to hinder their growth, while in other churches those same mistakes disappear under the seemingly inevitable march towards numerical success and growth.
If you’ve ever wondered, why are my mistakes hindering our church’s growth, but their mistakes are just hiccups on their superhighway to dramatic growth? you’re not alone. I’ve even talked with pastors experiencing relentless growth who don’t know why their mistakes haven’t killed their growth.
Churches And Church Growth Are Complicated
It’s never as easy as “get healthy and you’ll grow.”
I wish it was. But it’s not.
If you’re practicing The Great Commandment and The Great Commission your church will be healthy, but there are a massive number of other factors that turn healthy churches into consistently numerical growing ones.
Why? Because churches are made up of an endless variety of the most complicated ingredients:
- People
- Faith
- Jesus’ life and teachings
- Money
- Relationships
- An indefinable ‘product’
- Volunteers
- Spiritual needs
- Emotional issues
- Financial burdens
- Societal changes
- God’s will
and more.
Plus, we have an unquantifiable end result. How do we know when the church is a “success?”
- Conversions? If so, how many?
- When it gets big? If so, how big?
- When it plants other churches? If so, how many churches?
Church Growth Has Guidelines, Not Guarantees
Church growth will never be as predictable as we’d like it to be.
This is never an excuse to stop learning, praying and working, of course. After all, there are ways to ensure that you won’t be healthy or grow. Giving up and settling for less are on the top of that list.
If you’re pastoring an otherwise healthy church that isn’t hitting the numbers you (or others) expect, take heart. Many churches throughout history were outright failures by the numbers, but they were huge in God’s eyes and in their kingdom impact.
Stay faithful. Keep learning. Never use the inexact nature of church growth as an excuse to do anything but your best with everything God has given you.
But leave the end result in God’s hands.
(Photo by Peretz Partensky | Flickr)
