WHY WE BELIEVE IN CHURCH GROWTH

Silver Creek Fellowship is a growing church and we are asking God for more people. Our current prayer request is for 300 people in attendance at our Sunday meeting and we are rapidly moving towards that number. This past week I was confronted with a question by a member who is concerned about the effects of growth on the church: “Can a church grow too much? Should growth ever stop? Is there a limit to numerical growth?”

It’s a legitimate question that I’d like to look at some Bible verses to find answers for. The Bible in Matthew 13:31 says,” The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Though it is the smallest of all seeds yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants.”

This obviously implies growth. Jesus expected the church to grow.

Let me clarify what I mean by the term, “church growth”. When I use this phrase, I’m not talking about a church growing by Christians transferring their church membership from one church to another. That is often the real reason behind the rapid growth of churches. When one church puts on a better show than the other churches in town all the church shoppers flock to that new church.

In my opinion, that is not legitimate growth. This is not the type of growth Jesus meant when He gave the Great Commission. There are three different kinds of church growth.

1. Biological growth. This is when you have children of parents who are Christians become believers in the church. In other words, parents have children who grow up and grow to the age of accountability and make their own personal commitment to Christ.

2. Transfer growth. This is when members of one church transfer and become members of another church.

3. Conversion growth. Non Christians, non-believers, make their public confession of faith in Christ. They’re baptized and join into the life of the church.

The kind of church growth that we are primarily interested in is caused by the conversion of unbelievers to Christ, and that is the most important purpose for Silver Creek Fellowship to exist. Let me give you two biblical reasons why we believe the church must never stop growing.

1.) GOD’S WORD COMMANDS IT

God’s word commands numerical church growth. It’s obvious as you read the New Testament. In the Bible we have clear instruction from Christ about the spread of the Gospel. Jesus has given us a mission, a mandate to go and make disciples. This is called the Great Commission. Actually there are five great commissions given in the New Testament. The first one is the most famous:

Matthew 28:19-20 - “Jesus said, `Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded you and surely I will be with you always even to the very end of the age.”

In this passage we can see three things. Jesus said make disciples, mark disciples and mature disciples.

• We’re to make them – that’s win them to Christ help them become converted.
• Then baptize them – that’s mark them, help them identify as believers.
• And the mature them, “…teach them to obey everything I’ve commanded you.”

That’s the Great Commission, but I think that in a lot of churches it’s the Great Omission. We do everything except make, mark and mature disciples.

Mark 16:15, Luke 24:46-48, John 20:21 and Acts 1:8 are the other instances of Great Commissions of Christ. In each of the Gospels, and in the book of Acts, Jesus gives a commission to His followers that we are to go out and reach others for Christ.

Acts 1:8 - “You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria and the other ends of the earth.”

Here you can see that the Gospel is to be expanded in ever increasing concentric circles. He says, first you start in Jerusalem. That’s exactly where they were. Then He says go to Judea, that’s the county and then to Samaria, the county next door and then finally to the ends of the earth. We see how Jesus intended for the message of the Gospel to grow and the disciples were to begin at their home base and they were eventually to expand to other areas covering the entire globe.

Growth is not optional for a church because it’s commanded. In fact, I believe that the church that refuses to reach out to unbelievers is a disobedient church. It is sinning. To ignore these commandments is sin because Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” An obedient church will always have a desire to grow. It will want to grow because God has commanded that we reach out, that we grow.


2.) THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE

The needs of the people around us demand church growth. The Bible clearly states that people who die without Christ will go to hell. It is a reality that we cannot ignore. It has been estimated that 176,000 people die every 24-hours. Most of those people are dying without Christ. We need to continually remind ourselves of that eternal fact – that eternal punishment awaits those who die without Christ and eternal reward awaits those who die in Christ.

Matthew 25:41-46 “Then God will say, `Depart from Me, you who are accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And they shall go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into everlasting life.”

This is serious; there are eternal consequences. This fact continually motivates us at Silver Creek Fellowship to never stop reaching out. One of the foundations of our ministry is this: “As long as one person in our ministry area is lost and headed for hell, then we must continue to reach out with the Good News”. We will never stop growing as long as there is just one person who needs Christ, we will continue to reach out. No matter how many people we have we will never stop reaching out. We do not grow for our benefit; we grow for the benefit of other people. We grow because people need the Lord. We grow because people without Christ go to hell.

The fact is that it is selfish for a church to not want to grow. A church that says, “We’ve got enough people, we’ve got a nice fellowship. Our church is just the right size. We just need to focus on the members we already have.” That church is in reality, actually saying, “The rest of the world can go to hell. We don’t care.” The church that only focuses on itself, rather than on the needs of those out in the world, has lost its purpose and has simply become a social club.

I believe it’s selfish when a church does not want to grow. On the other hand, it is unselfish for a church to want to grow. Increased growth means more problems and bigger problems for sure. It means more people – which means more inconveniences, more conflicts, more expenses, more frustration with issues like building space, parking, and multiple services. The church that commits itself to growth is acting in an unselfish way. Our attitude about growth is this: We are willing to put up with the hassles of growth and welcome new people into our fellowship because people need the Lord.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 - “For the love of Christ compels us because we are convinced that one died for all.”

God loves all people. He never created a person He didn’t love. Because God cares, we must care. Love is the proper motivation for church growth. Nothing else but love – love for the Lord and love for people.

1 Peter 3:9 -“The Lord is patient not wanting any one to perish but wanting everyone to come to repentance.”

Here is a clear statement that shows that numerical growth is God’s will. He says the Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. That’s an issue that God says is clearly His will. We never have to pray, “Lord, help us reach more people, if it’s Your will.” Because it’s always God’s will for people to be saved.

I believe that church growth is a choice. A church must choose to grow or not to grow. Many churches have deliberately chosen not to grow. They make that choice in a variety of ways. They make it by the programs they offer. They make it by the amount of time and energy they invest in evangelism. They make the decision by the size of the building they choose to build. A church chooses whether to grow or not to grow in many instances. But if we really love God and we really love people, then the desire for church growth cannot be optional.