Numerical growth as a double standard
Posted on : 25-10-2009 | By : Dan | In : Church, Church Marketing, Emerging Trends
Tags: attendance, church growth, decline, George Barna, ministry, progress, statistics
6
I’ve been reading Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion
“Fix-the-church books almost always figure that declining church attendance … means the church has messed something up. Even though the new crop of church books decry the old church-growth models, they still operate with the same basic assumption: namely, that churches should be growing and something is wrong with the church that isn’t.
This assumption, however, is alien to the New Testament. Didn’t Jesus say tell us that “the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:14)? Wasn’t the early church of Philadelphia commended by the Lord Jesus even though they were facing opposition and had “little power” (Rev. 3:7-13)? There is simply no biblical teaching to indicate that church size is the measure of success.
I’ve written before that ministry progress is not measured by numerical growth, but by the creation of disciples who make other disciples. But this post is exposing the double standard, those who would “have their cake and eat it, too.”
Authors like George Barna like to use statistics showing the decline in church attendance to damn the church, but then quickly defend the 5-person house church because “progress is not measured by numbers.” So if the institutional church is losing numbers, it is always because they are doing church wrong. But if organic churches are not growing, then it’s for some other reason. All I’m asking for here is fairness. Isn’t it possible that a particular church isn’t growing because it is rightly teaching Law and Gospel and people don’t like to hear it? Isn’t it possible that a particular organic church isn’t growing because of the home leader’s pride? It works both ways, which is why numbers are not a good indicator of spiritual maturity nor ministry progress, no matter what church model we’re discussing.
Related posts:
I will again encourage you guys to read Simple Church. The effective is a Simple Church is the one which moves members to maturity. This can be measured by tracking the number of attendees who are moving forward in the discileship process. oh yeah- thats right- most churches have no discipleship process. Clarity- Movement-Alighnment- Focus- these words you will learn. The Real Question is- are your attenders moving forward in the process of becoming mature and also the ability to disciple others to maturity?
as a primary example- parents discipling their children not handing them off to someone else as the primary teachers.
I’ll definitely have to check that book out.
Hi Dan, I hear ya on the point that many of the “organic church” books may seem to be operating under somewhat of a double-standard when they point that I.C.’s are declining in number (using attendance as a measure), but then turn around and say that numerical growth shouldn’t be a measure of a “simple church”. But I’d have to agree with them that numerical growth shouldn’t be a measure at all. I’ve read all the polls and seen the Barna numbers about church “decline”, but to me, all that is pretty irrelevant, because even if conventional churches were growing in attendance by leaps and bounds, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it was because they were doing what the Bible tells us to…
But the reason that numerical decline is an issue for conventional churches, is that it is problematic according to the very criteria which they have created for themselves. They may or may not preach the gospel faithfully, but virtually all of them preach that unless you’re there regularly, putting money in the plate, then you’re not really a part of their “fellowship”. It all boils down to your financial contribution to the larger entity, and that then brings it back to numbers. A conventional church “dies” when it’s numbers are stagnate or dropping, because it can then no longer pay the bills. A ’simple church’ doesn’t doesn’t “die” when attendance drops, (firstly because it shouldn’t have that whole concept of “attendance” in the first place), and secondly because it’s not worried about the bills getting paid….
Interesting points! I personally enjoy and pay attention to what Barna says, but I do sometimes disagree. You raise a very valuable point about his double-standard here. (I’m assuming–perhaps wrongly–that George Barna is the head/founder/something of the Barna research group). I do find it interesting in some of the polls that group conducts about what churchgoers actually believe. The scary ones to me are how many people think Jesus sinned on earth and how few believe satan is a real being.
Barna has some good points, but lately he’s gone off the deep end with Frank Viola. He was the founder of Barna research group, it is now run by David Kinnaman, author of unChristian (although Barna still owns the company). I actually wrote about the poll you are referencing a few times, check out these posts:
What Do Christians Believe? http://prayeramedic.com/2009/04/what-do-christians-believe/
Growing True Disciples: http://prayeramedic.com/2008/07/growing-true-disciples/
Spirit-Filled? http://prayeramedic.com/2008/03/spirit-filled/
unChristian Series: http://prayeramedic.com/2008/05/unchristian-part-1/