Introduction:

Years ago I attended a church growth conference in Austin, Texas with a group of pastor friends from the San Angelo, Texas area. The event speaker was a pastor from a large metropolitan area in another state. His church was experiencing great numerical growth in the last few years and he wrote a book, developed videos, and was doing conferences to help other pastors and church leaders learn how to emulate what they were doing in the large metropolitan area he was from that the pastor believed was how you grow a church.

The large room was packed with hundreds of people mostly from all over the State of Texas. I sat in the room and listened intently to the process he outlined and for the entire conference I had a steadily growing, uneasy disposition and visceral response about what was being shared. The presentations focused almost entirely on the practical tools and processes the speaker and his church used to increase their attendance, none of which had much emphasis upon what Scripture had to say about growing a church. The complete focus of the conference was on the methodological processes the pastor and the church followed. “Do this and you get that,” formulaic approach to church growth dominated the day. The day could be described as, “a day to celebrate church growth by technique;” In retrospect, it was a manipulation of the human social science factors (psychology, sociology, geography, etc.).   

Body:

The launching of this blog on church growth, “Godgrowsthechurch.com,” is inspired by the desire to see God’s church grow according to His principles that He has given us through His Word. Launching the blog also is born out of a desire to be rightly used of the Lord to help Christoval Baptist Church in Christoval, Texas breakout of a plateaued point in church growth. Church growth! What is it? Is it spiritual growth? Numerical growth? Or both? What drives church growth? The people? God? The Holy Spirit? How do you know that it is developing? These are questions that must be considered and addressed when wrestling with the topic of growing the church. 

            What is church growth? First, “church.” is a term Jesus, Himself, used to describe believers and followers of Christ. The word, “ecclesia,” is the Greek word which means, “the called out,” or, “an assembly of Christians gathered for worship.”[1] Certainly, from a plenary theological standpoint the definition of, “church,” entails something even more expansive, but the simple definition will suffice for the discussion here. The word, “growth,” is correlative to the Matthew 16:18 word, “build,” used by Jesus to state that He will, “build,” His church. The word in the Greek language is, “oikodomeo,” meaning, “to build a house.”[2] Hence, when Jesus states that He will build His church, He is saying that man’s initiatives to grow a church must be rooted and grounded in Him, His Word, and His Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Man cannot take it upon himself to design methodologies untethered from Jesus, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and God’s Word.

            So is church growth numerical or spiritual? It is both! God intends to build His church numerically and to see the spiritual growth, or maturation, of His body. Becoming part of the body is a work of the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5 says man is saved, “not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior…” And this is extended to all men by God’s beautiful grace. First Timothy 2:3b-4 states that, “God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Church growth is numerical!

And it is spiritual. Ephesians 4:12-13 speaks of how Jesus equipped the church for growth through giving spiritual gifts for the, “edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect [mature] man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;” The church as a, “body,” metaphor is repeatedly used in Scripture and it is an effective illustration of the principle that a properly equipped healthy, “body,” will result in healthy growth, for the human body and the church body. Paul goes on in verse 15 stating, “but speaking the truth in love, [that the church] may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ-from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Hence, Christ equips His saints in the church to grow the church. The employment of the spiritual gifts must be guided by God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 12 is perhaps the greatest chapter in Scripture on God’s giving of spiritual gifts to build the church. Verse 11 states, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing [spiritual gifts] to each one individually as He wills.” Hence, the Holy Spirit is the Agent of church growth.

Lowe and Lowe beautifully illustrate the importance of the connectivity of the members of the body of Christ in a spiritual, “ecological,” system of growth:

[T]he body of Christ grows ecologically as all of the interconnected parts of the body function harmoniously and interactively…The connection between believer and Christ creates a means whereby the riches of Christ transfer to each connected Christian. Since each believer (Jew and Gentile) has a connection to Christ, each has a connection to other members of his body. In order for this to happen, the connections need to be intact and provide a conduit for the exchange of spiritual resources.[3]

There is a God-given spiritual connectivity that believers have to Jesus and other followers of His. These, “subterranean,” spiritual ties must be nurtured and championed through communion with Christ, a feasting on the Word of God, and being, “plugged in,” to a body of His people.  Church growth is numerical and spiritual! But, what is the primary catalyst of this growth. The Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is the one that calls man to Him.

Conclusion:

The church is the body of Christ and His people are designedly connected to Him and to one another. If a church is to grow, the believers must grow in relationship to Christ through prayer, the Word, and the church. Growth also comes through believers’ connectedness and ministry to one another. Yes, Christ builds the church; as His people grow in Him, learn His ways and His will, the vertical relationship with Him and the horizontal relationships with fellow believers flourish. There are spiritual and numerical growth. Certainly, environmental factors can influence growth such as geographic location and population centers, but clearly God calls the church to grow spiritually and numerically.

The big city-other state conference speaking pastor, undoubtedly motivated by a love for God and people, seemed taken with the factors that human beings can more easily control directly than those less measurable, more how one lives day to day and how one prays, loves, and walks with people for months and years to foster growth among God’s people. While there is certainly a place, “at the table,” for practical aspects of church growth, they must be considered secondarily to the spiritual principles and practices championed by the Lord in Scripture.  

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[1] “G1577 – ekklēsia – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (kjv).” Blue Letter Bible. Accessed 23 Sep, 2024. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1577/kjv/tr/0-1/.

[2] “G3618 – oikodomeō – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (kjv).” Blue Letter Bible. Accessed 23 Sep, 2024. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g3618/kjv/tr/0-1/

[3] Stephen D. Lowe & Mary E. Lowe, Ecologies of Faith in A Digital Age: Spiritual Growth through online Education (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 59.