Chapter 7
Church Life Beyond
“the
work”
(2)
—Dispelling misunderstandings
about numbers
A
short while ago I received a phone call from a Midwest local church. An LSM worker had visited the saints there,
house by house, bringing “the whole story” of Titus Chu’s quarantine, the
Uganda work, and the Columbus and Mansfield debacles. He, of course, had a lot of explaining to do
before he could get to the punchline—that the church
ought to follow “the ministry of the age” and disavow everyone else. The couple who called me about this encounter
was far from shaken by the worker’s spiel.
“We feel so sorry for that man,” they said. “You could tell that something was wrong with
him. The things he was saying were so
extreme and yet he believed them.”
The
couple went on to relate how that the subject of a non-LSM local church had
come up and how the Lord seemed to have blessed it with an impressive growth
rate. “Oh, that’s just numbers; that’s
a weak Christ,” the worker
sneered.
When
I heard that remark, it reminded me of the many times I have bumped into such
sentiments, repackaged and solemnly distributed among members of narrow or dying groups. It all comes down to the central premise that
“Numbers are bad, spirituality is good” (as if there were no possible way for
them to coexist). Somehow the prospect
of hundreds and hundreds of people giving their lives to Christ, developing a
spiritual life and receiving one another in the Christian faith doesn’t move
these folks. The heavens are rejoicing,
as Jesus said, but not them. What is the
preferable alternative that they have in mind? It is a dozen or so people
hunkered over ministry materials, telling each other things that they all
already know but act as if they’ve never heard.
Thus we hear that “It is not the quantity, but the quality that counts,”
and “Numbers are not life,” and many other slogans which I will debunk later in
this chapter.
A
most curious paradox, however, occurs when these same stunted, peculiar little
groups are somehow temporarily able to experience a surge in headcount. Suddenly, in a stunning reversal of
attitudes, they begin to trumpet their larger numbers as proof of the Lord’s
blessing. For instance, during the
eighties, the LC Movement scrupulously focused on numbers. Strategies were adopted which were
specifically designed to yield the highest number of positive responses to LC
door-to-door volunteers. Charts and
records were posted keeping track of numerical success. In some places, those who achieved the
greatest quantity of bathtub baptisms were literally saluted (as in the
military) by less productive church members.
Numbers were triumphantly read in public settings to responsive cries of
“Amen!”
In
the nineties there were various moves to different countries (Russia and the
former eastern block countries), all of course
reported with more than ample attention to numbers. And then there were the
distribution figures: how many thousands
of Recovery Version Bibles, and other pieces of literature were given out—all
reported, again, to impress the listener with the fact that the Lord was
blessing the work. The double standard has now become clear: as long as the LC
Movement has numbers or popularity it will boast that “the Lord has given His
Recovery an open door.” But if other
groups flourish to the point of eclipsing Local Churches (which currently is
the case in nearly every city on earth), the Movement maintains that numbers
and popular appeal are fleshly, shallow and unwanted anyway.
Unturned Cakes—A Disdain for
Numbers
In
its earlier history in North America, the LC Movement rode the wave of the
1960s “Jesus Movement.” Like other groups (such as Calvary Chapel), that were
spawned in that era, it gained a swift influx of idealistic youth. Following
that initial surge, the LC Movement settled upon a single-minded quest for
“truth” and “enjoyment.” Then in the eighties through Witness Lee, it
experienced an epiphany of sorts, realizing that the numbers of new members had
bottomed out and slow attrition had begun to set in even among seasoned
folk. This led to a shift of seismic
proportions, where numerical growth, statistics, and methods claimed center stage. It further unfortunately resulted in members
being caught up in the suction trail of activities that were sometimes
bizarrely ill-fitted to their communities.
Reading booklets to people through screen doors, bathtub baptisms,
“turning left,” and Mormon-like attire were void of inner registration with
many LC members and ultimately dry.
As
was typical of the Movement, good things—gospel preaching, baptisms, and
teaching—quickly became enmeshed with legalistic sentiments. For a brief but intense time, promotion and
enforcement of this “New Way” seemed to reach every corner of the Movement,
eventually triggering a general hemorrhage in its membership. Although the Midwest was far from the center
of the drama, I recall contemplating a departure at that time, myself. Almost imperceptibly I had slipped out of a
simple life of truth and service and into what was beginning to feel like a
world of empty religious sales and marketing.
Without the kind intervention of one brother who reintroduced me to the
Bible, the Holy Spirit, and a more sane exercise in the gospel, I certainly
would have disappeared (perhaps completely from the Christian life).
Such
religious experiences have lingering after-effects. Chief among them is a soured attitude toward
church growth. This causes ill-affected
believers to become like the unturned cake of Hosea 7:8. Having been wounded on one side, they
compensate by flipping over and exclusively cooking on the other side. That’s
why individuals and even whole churches can sometimes be heard vowing never to
care about numbers again. But that
extreme is just as damaging as the one that provoked it. A church with little or no increase will
eventually be saddled with a membership that is aging into oblivion. Extinction will be right around the corner.
Undeniably,
issues related to inner life and spiritual vitality are critical in the
Christian experience. But should spirituality lead us to disdain numbers? Is quantity inconsequential? Shouldn’t we care about how many people are being
saved, being shepherded, being discipled, and
attending church meetings? These are
incendiary questions among Christians today.
On one side of the extreme lies serious compromises and rampant
consumerism, while on the other are stalled-out, irrelevant and unproductive
churches.
Addressing
the issue will necessarily involve cooking both sides of the “cake.” And so we
start with those who look with suspicion upon numbers. Small groups of
hyper-spiritual Christians tend to be this way.
They frequently denounce strategies to carry out the Lord’s work as
being the work of the flesh or efforts of the natural man. When the book of Acts says that “the Lord
added daily those who were being saved,” they wholeheartedly agree that only the Lord did it. So to them, ‘Christian work’ is a
contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.
Such things as salvation, discipleship and church growth they maintain,
should be effortless. No one needs to
plan or do, let alone be exhausted. The
final judgment on the matter is that it is better to be small in number than to
engage in the work of religious flesh.
So, diminutive attendance rates do not bother them in the
slightest. The group believes it is
small because the Lord prefers it that way.
However,
such groups are usually small only because they
want it that way. Overly narrow
attitudes make them peculiar and unattractive to outsiders. Nor does alienating
mainstream society necessarily trouble them.
They do not see themselves as existing for redemptive purposes in the community
anyway, but as special repositories of higher revelations, mysteries, hidden
knowledge. Such “deeper” Christian groups almost never have a significant
impact on the world. Their religious
beliefs typically prevent them from having an effective witness in communities,
as they do not want to become polluted with regular Christians or the
unsaved. There is no need to think of
their smallness of size as though it were a matter of sovereign design or a
mystery of divine selection. It is the
natural product of being strange.
Now
it would seem that the best way to jar these groups back to reality would be
objective inquiry. For instance, a
simple soul could ask why the group was so small, given its claim to be God’s
preferred place of operation on the earth.
The logic of the question falls into the same category as asking why, if
Joes’ Pizza parlor makes the best pizza in the world (like the window sign
says), there are never more than two or three people in the parlor. That seems like an easy way to defuse
grandiose claims and it might work with Joe’s Pizza, but it won’t fare so well
with the devout. Never underestimate the
power of religion to set aside common sense.
Christians will quickly resort to a tickle file of verses to defend
indefensible positions. In this case,
the passages they typically cite are used not only to justify their tiny
membership, but also to apply a negative slant against numbers in general.
A
very popular citation is “Many are called but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). The verse seems to suggest that sparseness of
quantity is according to God’s design.
According to that logic, attempts to have more than a “few” people would
be an attempt to supersede the will of God.
However, when we return this verse to its original context, we find it
referring to the Lord’s wedding feast at the end of this age, and not to the
size of church membership. Some will
predictably retort that those in a special little group are the chosen ones who are being prepared for the wedding feast in
the next age and that is why they are so few. This thinking, though, is little more than
the group’s own propaganda. There is
simply no evidence supporting the thought that belonging to a particular Christian
group guarantees a reward at the end of the age.
John
chapter 11 contains a description of the little
house in Bethany, yet another favorite touch point for those seeking to impugn
numbers. It is a portrayal, some say, of
an intimate church life whose reality is not feasible in a large group. This passage, however, makes no prescriptive
statements about anything. It is a part
of the gospel narrative, the ongoing story of Jesus, and not a doctrinal
treatise on how to practice the New Testament church. While it is fine to read John 11 as an
illustration of principles like intimate fellowship, resurrection (in Lazarus),
service (in Martha), and love (in Mary), it makes no statements about external
features like the desired size of a congregation. Many larger churches have an equally proficient
handle on resurrection, service, love, and fellowship as their smaller
counterparts. Their mega-numbers are not
a problem, as many of them manage to sub-structure themselves into dynamic
small groups where they have preserved “the little house” principle. A dwarfish
membership then, is not the only possible way for spiritual advantages to be
conferred upon a Christian group.
“The
great tree” (Mt.
13:31-32) is a parable typically used to depict numbers in a negative way. It has been thought that a small group of
believers should not grow into anything large or else it will become corrupt in
the process. The point of the parable,
however, is that instead of being a food producer, the tree becomes a roosting
place for birds. Even small churches can
fall into this description. A few saints
in a tiny hall can easily become a “hang-out” for cliques, gossip, and
back-biting, a place no longer conducive for spiritual life. A group of forty can develop as unhealthy a
church culture as one of four thousand.
The question is not one of size, but of what is roosting there.
“Little
flock” (Luke 12:32) was a designator that the Lord Jesus applied to His
followers. It is also another popular
talking point for bias against numbers.
But was the adjective “little” meant to be a prohibition against large
numbers or was it meant to describe the diminutive status of the church in this
world? In terms of politics and natural
greatness, the church ought to be small.
However when super-spiritual people try to use “little flock” to mean
little in number, more issues are raised. For instance, how little is “little”? When does a group of people increase in size
until they cross the line and cease being the “little flock?” Of course it is impossible to figure out. The Bible never gives us any such numbers, because when the Lord said “little flock” He more
than likely did not have a literal head count in mind.
In
order to justify non-existent growth rates, appeals have also been made to
principles in the Old Testament. For
instance, those who returned to the Holy Land in the Old Testament recovery
books were a small number, only about 42,000.
The majority remained in Babylon.
Therefore to some commentators, large numbers signify religious
Babylon. This kind of Bible study is
problematic. Did the recovery number
forever stay small? When Jesus came four
hundred years later, were there still just 42,000 in the Holy Land? Of course not. By that time there may have been
millions. If we take two million as the
estimated population of Israel during the time of Christ, that means the
original 42,000 would have had to increase approximately forty eight
times. Evening out the percentages over
four hundred years would show the remnant numbering 500,000 after their first
century in Israel and then gaining 500,000 every century after that. The recovery picture, therefore, is not one
of a small group that stayed small, but of a group starting small and then growing at a steady, upward pace.
Having
addressed some of the bias against numerical strength, we now turn our
attention to attitudes that give a zealous “thumbs-up” to church growth. Size is not always a good thing. First of all, numbers are not positive when
they result in complacency towards people.
Luke chapter 15 describes the shepherd leaving the “ninety-nine” and
seeking the “one.” But sometimes, large
numbers of people lull us into feeling that the “one” is no longer important
because the “ninety-nine” are still there.
This is the complaint of many people who have left the megachurch movement.
Over time they came to feel like non-persons who were only good for
headcount and financial support. Lost in
a sea of others, no one noticed who they were or what they were going through
in their personal lives. Eventually when
they left, no one noticed or cared. This
de-personalization is probably the number one reason why most people dislike
large groups.
Furthermore,
numbers are not good when they exist to gratify the ego. David numbered Israel (1 Chron. 21:1-4) and
it was a sin that angered God, not because numbers were wrong, but because
pride drove him to order the count. The
size of Israel had become a trophy for him, an occasion for fleshly
glorying. Servants of the Lord today can
also cultivate a lust for success in spiritual work similar to the way
entrepreneurs do in secular work. They can be lured into becoming climbers,
self-promoters, celebrities, and flavor-of-the-month trendsetters. And such religious attainments seem almost
certain if the minister in question can gather large numbers of people once a
week in church services. The price of numerical advancement, however, can be
high. Desperation to succeed often
involves cutting ethical corners or using people as tools. When the members of
a church sense that blind ambition steers the congregation, and not God-given
burden, they end up feeling like pawns utilized to build someone’s personal
empire. In the case of David, a plague struck the people after he numbered them
(1 Chron. 21:14). In the case of a
mishandled church, spiritual devastation can also occur as disillusioned
members depart.
Neither
are numbers good when they are utilized to prove orthodoxy. Size of membership should never be seen as
conclusive proof that a group is right.
In fact, too many times in scripture it was the majority that got it
wrong. Eleven tribes of Israel committed
idolatry leaving one, Levi, which sided with Moses and God (Ex. 32:25-26). Much later, ten tribes broke away from the
twelve, leaving only two, Benjamin and Judah, still faithful to the Lord. Then there is the account of four hundred
false prophets of Baal standing against one authentic prophet, Elijah (1 Kings
18:17-39). In the New Testament, the
Lord Himself said that many will go in by the broad gate which leads to
destruction, while few find the narrow gate which leads to life (Matt.
7:13-14). We are also reminded of the
thousands that were in the church in Jerusalem, although that certainly did not
mean God was happy with its later mix of Judaism and the Christian faith (Acts
21:20). So, there is a real danger of being deceived if we look for proof of
legitimacy in numbers. Even cult groups
like the Mormons have impressive growth rates.
If we want to establish the orthodoxy of a Christian group and the real
blessing of the Lord upon it, we must not only look at its numbers but the
doctrine that it holds and the fruit of its living.
Finally,
numbers are not good when we sacrifice core beliefs for them. It is unfortunate
that these are all too often up for trade in contemporary Christian
circles. Some church growth gurus skirt
the possibility of offending people and thus suffering a reduced headcount, by
shelving key truths like the supremacy of Christ, sin, judgment, blood
atonement or biblical morality. But if
we eliminate these things, “the good news” is eviscerated of anything
good. Where is the contrast? Why is forgiveness of sins so wonderful if
there is no awful alternative?
Biblical fidelity is never a good swap for numbers. A crowd of quasi-Christians who “kind of”
hold the Christian faith will never satisfy God’s heart or ours.
Having
cooked both sides of the polemical numbers cake, it’s time to consider the
issue from the divine viewpoint. Concern
for quantity does not originate in misguided ambition. Genesis
1:26 records God telling Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. The word “multiply” obviously has to do with
numerical increase. It is an even
stronger word than addition. The Creator intended for His image to be
exponentially duplicated. He never meant
for Adam to produce a few children and then relax with the assurance that they
were high quality human beings. There
was to be no such thing as a preference or even a tension between quality and
quantity. Adam’s fruit was to have both.
The command of multiplying the image of God was related to his mission, not his
greed.
Later,
part of God’s “gospel” to Abraham was that He would multiply Abraham’s
descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand on the seashore (Gen.
22:17). The metaphor God selected—stars
and grains of sand—was, among other things, meant to communicate the idea of
vast numbers. Right there woven into the
divine promise was an emphasis on plenitude. Without apology, God valued
abundance and sought to encourage Abraham with the promise of it.
In
addition to the forgoing points, the Holy writ contains an entire book called
Numbers. Inside of it, many figures are
given—numbers of tribes and families, of armies, of people—so many in fact,
that the average reader will get tired and want to skip over them. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
Moses penned these numbers to record the scope of God’s testimony in the Old
Testament. God’s testimony is a great
matter in the universe. It has to do
with a group’s movement together with Him, its consecration, its willingness to
fight spiritual battles, and its worship of Him. The larger the testimony,
the better. With this in view, it
is easier to detect a certain divine enthusiasm behind the otherwise “dry”
numerical accounts in Numbers.
Coming
to the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus said, “My Father is glorified by this,
that you bear much fruit…” (15:8). Ultra-spiritual
groups find this kind of thought suspect.
Sequestered in tiny places and hidden from view, they typically do not
bear much fruit and they look upon those who are effective in doing so as
merely being “workers.” But as the Lord
stated, the Father’s glory depends on quantity.
In an effort to escape that fact, Christian groups further try to
redefine “fruit” as only being the virtues of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians
chapter 5, and not people. However, the
Bible interchangeably portrays fruit as both converts to the faith and
spiritual character. “Fruit” does not
uniquely mean one apart from the other.
In fact, the true fruit of spiritual virtue eventually branches out and
reproduces itself as true fruit in other people.
The
Lord revealed His expectation of healthy fruit-bearing Christians when He spoke
of thirty, sixty, and one hundred fold quantities (Matt.13:23). Since some narrow religious folk have no
desire to reach such productivity, they try to adjust the interpretation of the
parable from the number of souls to spiritual growth. “We are small in number,” they say, “But we
have grown thirty-fold in Christ!”
Actually, if a thirty-fold increase in authentic spirituality had
occurred, then it would certainly produce an increase of new people. Just think of it—with Christ increasing so
much in a Christian group, i.e. “kindness, goodness, meekness, love,
faithfulness, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23), the outside world couldn’t help but
respond to Him!
The
parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6-9, further reminds us about the level of
importance God attaches to fruitfulness—“For three years I have come seeking
fruit on this fig tree and find none.
Cut it down, why does it use up the ground?” Although the Bible speaks a lot about spiritual
life and the need for us to have it and enjoy it, a “living” fruit tree without
fruit is useless. We could feel the life
sap within and find many creative and profound ways to describe it, study it,
and preach it, but the orchard owner is not going to say, “Well, there aren’t
many apples around, but at least the trees themselves are high quality!” If we could enter a fruitful life, our
churches would be the most happy, comforting, wonderful places in the world. Imagine a cycle of Christ growing in us with
all His glorious virtues, attracting more people from the outside, who then
begin growing Christ in them. After a
while, we would be surrounded with a community of glory and virtue expressing
God. What could be better?
Another
parable in the Gospel of Luke was about a man who prepared a great feast,
symbolizing the finished work of Christ (Luke 14:16-24). Very few guests showed up to enjoy it, so the
man told His servants to go out and compel them to come in and fill the
house. By telling this story, Christ was
making clear that God is dissatisfied as long as His house is not packed to
capacity. Groups that have gotten lazy
and self-satisfied would reply to the Master of the feast, “Maybe others will
hear about our enjoyment or see us through a window enjoying the feast and they
will come in on their own. Besides, we might spoil our appetite if we try to
round them up. We are here to feast, not work!”
God won’t be persuaded by such sentiments. Besides, while people progressively enter our
church life, steadily trickling in from neighborhoods and offices, from
friendships and families, God’s feast of salvation becomes more expansive and
therefore more rich and celebratory.
The
Gospel of John is traditionally known as the gospel of eternal life, a book
very appealing to those of more mystical, inner life leanings. It is all the more interesting, then, that in
this gospel, we find the feeding of the five
thousand. Why is a number
mentioned? And when the scraps were
taken up in baskets, why do we need to know that the number of them was
twelve? The emphasis in each case is to
impress the reader with quantity—the ability of Christ to satisfy many. After this simple understanding, the reader
can certainly hunt for spiritual significance in the numbers themselves, but
the most immediate message has been delivered—a lot of people were fed and a
lot was left over. Quantity is important, even in the gospel of life. At the end of John, there is a net full of
fish and we are told exactly how many—153 (John 21:11). Again, the direct meaning of the number in
that verse is “many.” In a hyper-spiritual environment, church leaders can
easily fall into the extreme of never really knowing how many fish are in the
net. As a result, they are rarely bothered when saints are missing. It is almost considered vulgar to count the
saints, but if fish are numbered and the very hairs of our head are also (Matt.
10), surely the saints must be numbered as well. Life respects numbers!
In
the book of Acts, numbers are consistently given in relation to the success of
the gospel. Three thousand, five
thousand, and then myriads are mentioned.
The deliberate intention is to connect quantity to effectiveness. If the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of
God unto salvation, had managed to influence only forty people after the first
few years of being preached, then that would not have been much of a
testimony. It is the same idea in the
Book of Revelation. There, John seeks to
impress us with numbers of incredible size:
a company of angels “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands” (5:11) who celebrate the Lord’s redemption. There, the emphasis on size is in accordance
with God’s wish to exhibit the greatness of His Son’s accomplishments. We are also shown a “great multitude which no
one could number” (Rev. 7:9). The
super-spiritual shake their heads in dismay. “Why mention ‘great multitude’? It’s not about size!” But the Spirit finds special joy in the fact
that large numbers have been affected by the salvation in Christ (Also see Rev.
19:1). Revelation 14 records a group of
144,000 firstfruits faithfully following the
Lamb. This highly spiritual company is
numbered. They are not an amorphous
“blob” of life. Again, I am aware of the
deeper interpretations of that number, stemming from the composite numbers
involved—twelve times twelve times one thousand (or we could say three times
four times twelve times one thousand or maybe two times six times twelve times
one hundred times one hundred). But I
believe the primary impression and one less likely to vary from one expositor
to the next is the simple idea of a large quantity. There are a lot of firstfruits. God likes that.
During
the three years of the Lord’s earthly ministry, His closest followers numbered
twelve for a while, then seventy, and at the end, a mere one hundred and
twenty. It was a rather underwhelming
quantity, especially since the incarnate Son of God Himself was directly
involved in the labor. However, His work
with these small numbers, while apparently modest for a time, prepared them for
a future of great fruitfulness. Having learned from their Master during those
years they later ministered to thousands, astronomically increasing the number
of disciples. As with the model of the Lord’s work, there is a time for core
growth and infancy in any Christian group.
Small groups and little churches should understand that in essence, they
should be doing the same thing. While in
smaller numbers, we anticipate a greater capacity and thus prepare for greater
ministerial effectiveness. We do not
meet in a living room because we like the comfort of it. We do not gather in a school or a hall in
order to have our favorite kind of church life.
We do it ultimately because we are preparing for a future of service
toward a world of perishing people and Christians who have not been properly
taught, shepherded, or discipled. Therefore, we should beware of a philosophy
that emphasizes inner life and enjoyment with no stress on service unto
fruitfulness. As individual believers and as churches we are not directed to
choose between
spiritual life and numerical increase. The Lord wants both.
Ideally
speaking, an increase in the size of the church means an increase in
Christ. Inner life purists will no doubt
have a problem with this statement (yes, I read “The Knowledge of Life”
too). But my simple logic is that if
twenty new believers join your church, then they will bring with them twenty
extra individual dimensions of experience. Novice Christians have an
invigorating effect on a church much like new children do in a family that has
grown stale. They have a way of contributing fresh discoveries and bittersweet
struggles to the overall household of the faith. In this sense, enriching a group has more to
do with numerical growth than dousing it with teachings until its members reach
a fatigued super-saturation point.
Realistically
speaking, though, increased numbers mean increased problems as well. Twenty more people will guarantee twenty more
problematic situations thrown into the mix.
Personalities will collide.
Offenses will inevitably surface.
There will be misunderstandings.
Someone will complain about not being cared for enough. Another will say that she is feeling burned
out, bored, or lonely. Actually, these
problems and more—blind ambition, marital frictions, kid problems, weaknesses,
pride, sinful things—all pre-exist as a microcosm within small Christian
groups. A law of group dynamics holds
that increasing the size of a group unavoidably means increasing the scope of
trouble as well.
With
such drawbacks, we might very well find ourselves asking if it is worth
it. Perhaps it is better to simply
maintain a tiny home fellowship that has a stationary but safe membership. Once a week we could enjoy snacks and some
revelations from the Word. Admittedly,
the extra encouragement of new faces would be nice, but we can survive without
it.
What
most of us do not take into account, is that there is more at stake here than a
morale boost and some heightened enjoyment.
New Testament principles that might otherwise remain in the realm of
theory are literally forced into reality among the believers in a growing
congregation. For one thing with
increasing size, issues related to perfecting believers unto the work of
ministry (Eph. 4) must be ironed out.
This activity produces people who are the heart, brains, hands and feet
of the church. Only a steady local
perfecting work can provide the elasticity that the church needs to make room
for newcomers. Otherwise a growing
headcount will leave the few who always cook, make phone calls, visit, plan, teach and shepherd, to struggle under an ever-increasing
burden. Regardless of how capable they are, this gifted core has time and
energy limitations. When those limits
are breached, like a rubber band, either the entire group will snap, or it will
rebound back to its original size. A congregation can only grow as large as its
core membership can directly manage or reasonably delegate. And that core can
only grow as people are equipped to be in it. Even if the number of newcomers
suddenly becomes freakishly large for some unknown reason, without a supportive,
functioning core, they will disappear before long. Hence there is the absolute necessity of
gifted members developing others.
This
should not be confused with what has popularly been called “training” or
“perfecting” among the Local Churches. Probably
no one has dissected the contents of Ephesians 4 with more gnat-straining
precision than the LC Movement. Yet even after the patenting of slogans like “Everyone has a
portion!” and decades of ministry training, effective Local Churches are still
non-existent. Efforts to
“perfect” did not stimulate diverse teamwork-oriented local ministries. Instead, they produced groups of highly
indoctrinated loyalists and folks addicted to more and more training. When it
comes to imparting true ministerial skills into people minus video monitors,
outlines, and performances at microphones, Movement “perfecting” has
flopped.
The
principles Paul laid down in Ephesians 4 are supposed to be more than smug
truisms about the right way to “do church.” They are instructions for the
trenches, the front lines of daily congregational living. However they do not translate into reality
until the church honestly decides to get busy and grow.
The
gradual swell of numbers in a congregation also changes the hearts and minds of
its members. Here the Apostle Paul’s
exhortation to “be enlarged” takes on new meanings. No one particularly needs stretching in the
comfort of a smaller setting that is dominated by decade-long friendships, cozy
Bible studies, and beloved banana bread recipes. Yet, as the second and third rows in your
meeting and then all the spare chairs that you have stacked in the garage fill
up with people, new challenges emerge. Saints
must now decide whether they prefer a cliquish church life over one that makes
room for new people.
If
the preference is distinctly pro-clique, every concession in the church for the
sake of newcomers will provoke complaints from established members. Anything from message content to musical
style to meeting times can easily become a hotly debated topic. Smallness of heart is precisely where all
such “concerns” come from. Is our
schedule and way of doing things adjustable, even for the sake of souls that
might not be otherwise reached? It seems
that only Christians must seriously ponder this question. Ask an expectant couple if they are willing
to make adjustments in their schedule and in their way of doing things for the
sake of the new baby. Only the most
clueless parent-to-be hasn’t come to terms with that. Everyone knows that new life always arrives,
upsetting the routine and forcing us to live differently. Only hearts that are willing to be broadened
will survive the experience.
As
part of its heart enlargement, a church must also be ready to venture outside
the comfortable familiarity of its own “buddy” network. Most small, established
congregations enjoy tightly knit companionships and find it difficult to
assimilate outsiders. Although no one is overtly hostile to them, visitors will
quickly detect this shortcoming. It is apparent when members huddle only with
friends after meetings, constantly and casually refer to things only an
in-house audience would know, and avoid greeting newcomers. Those are just a few of the signs that the
church is not yet large-hearted enough to provide an entrance for others.
From
about 1999 the Columbus church took steps that purposely addressed its aversion
to visitors. After meetings we made a
point of deliberately seeking out new faces and shaking hands with them, even if
that meant standing in line to do it.
This was treated with the same degree of importance as spiritual
exercises in the earlier meeting. Of
course I realize that this can also be seen as strange to first time visitors,
but it was our way of overdoing to offset our previous extreme. We have since leveled out. Additionally, in order to facilitate a
welcoming atmosphere, we ceased mentioning events or the names of people only
known in our fellowship. We stopped
taking for granted that everyone in our meetings were long-timers. And of
course, as soon as they were ready, we invited new friends into our homes and
offered them places of service in the church.
This was our early experience of being enlarged and yet, there was so
much more to come.
The
eldership here was stretched to almost agonizing limits. We had to learn new things like how to plant
a youth congregation and allow it to operate with relative autonomy. We also had to realize that the talents of
new members overall were not natural rubbish that needed to be “crossed out,”
but gifts from God that would maximize our mission to reach the world and build
up the church. Those gifts needed
support and assistance for their development, not warped spiritual teachings
that demanded they should be buried.
Today new projects are on the horizon and, yes, further seasons of
broadening will accompany them. We
expect that as the church increases in size so will the hearts of all the
saints involved.
Honesty
doesn’t sound like a terribly practical way to commence church growth. Yet, this is exactly where leaders need to
begin. How many people are in your
church? If you can’t answer this with
certainty or without a fudge factor inserted to cushion your pride, then you
may never get around to realizing that you have a problem. Questions about church size are harder to
answer than they sound. Most leaders keep a round estimate in their heads and
report it as their attendance, even if the number has reduced over the last
years. Seventeen people continue to be
reported as thirty-some. Thirty-seven
are sixty-some. No one is necessarily
lying (okay, maybe some are); it’s just that numbers are a particularly painful
subject for Local Churches to address.
Though conferences and trainings might pump up the appearance of the
Movement’s size, the situation in local congregations has been steadily eroding
for decades. The best that can be said
for most is that they have shakily maintained a semblance of their earlier
memberships.
The
first order of business, then, is to establish the exact size of your
congregation. This does not mean
retreating to a theoretical count where you figure that all the Christians in the city are in the church in that city. Nor should you base your calculations on a
spike count—a few meetings that were unexpectedly large due to visitors, their
kids, and the guy who wandered in thinking you were a coffee shop. Nor do we want a legacy count, which includes
longstanding members who are around so little that they are a novelty when they
appear. Neither are we looking for a
care count that keeps
track of every troubled soul somehow slightly connected to the congregation.
These
numbering methods, which are favorites of Local Church leaders, cloud accurate
ideas of the true strength of the church. I suggest starting off by numbering
those who attend weekly meetings. This
will give an immediate idea of who is reliably with you. Of course we’re not
eliminating from the church those who can’t attend every Sunday. That’s not the
point. This numbering exercise is only
for trying to get an idea of the church’s strength whenever it comes together.
Even
with an accurate count, though, your current congregational size may not tell
the whole story of how it has been doing, growth-wise. Yes, thirty-five saints may not be a bad
number, unless of course, it has been thirty-five for the last thirty-five
years. Your church has a history that
can tell you a lot more than its current statistics. This includes giving you an idea of where it
will probably head in the future. If
past attendance figures can be supplied and then graphed, the data will plainly
reveal whether your congregation has mushroomed, plateaued,
declined, or stalled over the years. The
results might be shocking, but a stiff dose of truth may save you from
continuing to live in a dead end situation.
Armed
with this preliminary information, you can go on to ask further questions. Have you grown or shrunk over the last five
years? If you have grown, then how did
it happen? Was it through people being
saved or Christians joining you or other Local Church people moving in? If you have shrunk, then why? Did people move away or get offended or
simply have needs that you couldn’t meet?
This will involve more honesty. Don’t let yourself come up with the same
old stock excuses as Movement folk, who cannot accept even the suggestion that
they might need to adjust their program.
As
another practical point, try setting some numerical goals, but be
realistic. Don’t repeat what was done in
the eighties, when Local Churches expected to double in one year and then every
year after that. Youth were assured that
if they got into Propagation Groups, an exponential growth rate would occur,
culminating in the return of Christ thirteen years later. These ridiculous forecasts many years ago
made me begin to question the maturity of Movement leaders. Even as a young man, I knew that human souls
would never act so predictably as to conform to the schemes of
number-crunching.
So,
select a growth-goal that seems reasonable to the size and make-up of your
congregation. One year our campus work
tried, “Every one bring one” as a motto. It wasn’t very realistic because not everyone
was in a condition to bring someone into the church. We might have been better off saying,
“Everyone invite one.”
That would have been a more reachable goal and by carrying it out we
might well have gotten a few people to continue fellowshipping with us. As a more pragmatic exercise, recently “The 590
Program” began. The Ohio State
University has about 59,000 students and our campus organization set a goal of
reaching one percent of them with the gospel.
The effort was deemed realistic by taking into account how many students
meet with us, plus their level of consecration.
Expectations were also reasonably set. The program does not state that
590 must be saved, only that 590 must hear the gospel and either reject it or
accept it. Ultimate results like
salvation are in the Lord’s hands, but the effort to preach can certainly be in
ours. So far this seems to be
working.
Don’t
be afraid of numbers-oriented goals.
Many years we did not think in terms of numbers and so made no
goals. Without goals we did not bother
with strategy. With no strategy we had
no expectation. Where there was no
expectation there was no prayer. And of
course where there is no prayerful asking, there is no receiving. Don’t let your annual experience be this
way—getting no growth because you think it’s unspiritual to want it.
Despite
what the critics say, church growth need not be the domain of cheap religious
consumerism. It does not have to involve
the de-personalization of people or a compromise of the faith. The entire burden of numbers originated with
God Himself and continues today as both a divine command and a promise. This
fact was not lost upon deeply spiritual people like Andrew Murray, A. B.
Simpson, and Hudson Taylor who were occupied with gaining many people for
Christ. Nor should we think of ourselves as being above the matter of numbers,
no matter how spiritual we purport to be.
As servants we have been told to fill the house. In this, the Master of the feast will be
happy.
And
so will you.