Congregational Health = Numerical Growth
Here are two of the statements I learned today….
1) Numeric growth is directly perportional to congregational health.
2) It is essential for apple churches (0-200 members) to “act like” orange churches (200-45,000 members) until they actually live into their orange-ness.
This is the kind of stuff the Synod of the Great lakes wants its chuches to embrace?! What’s the problem? Um… as much as our denomination seems interested in turning congregational health into a numerical consideration, I’m not convinced it’s either appropriate (or, even more importantly, biblical). Secondly, while I’ll be the first to admit that church of 0-200 and those of 200-45,000 are as comparible as apples and oranges, let’s not presume to suggest that every church ought to be a 200, 500 or 1,000 member congregation…that’s simply absurd!
Maybe I’ll talk more later, I’m exhausted tonight.
Grace and Peace,
`tim
3 Responses to “Congregational Health = Numerical Growth”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:44 am
I totally agree. We’re getting this same rhetoric in the Synod of Canada.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:51 am
I am glad to hear you refusing this crazy notion. Don’t capitulate to the ABC’s of church growth. It’s crap.
(A=attendance, B=buildings C=cash flow)
May 20th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Rogue, really?! Is this a regional synod-level thing, or what? Why do the church growth gurus gravitate to THAT level of the church?
I also agree, Tim. I do think, though, that a church that isn’t growing in some respect, is shrinking or stagnating. Population potential of the region may affect that somewhat, though…