Church Growth

As I was studying this afternoon and preparing for the first worship services for Hope, I was looking through some messages I had preached before. One particular message concerned the growth of the church. I ran across a quote which is attributed to Edward Abbey (an environmentalist from the last century - the quotation of whom is not an endorsement of his views by the way). Abbey wrote, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Cancer is basically runaway cell growth which displaces other cells and, when unchecked, eventually results in death.

As a church planter and pastor, it almost goes without saying that church growth is vital to the life and existence of the church plant. We must reach out to our community and hopefully bring new people into the church. We want and desire to see the church grow spiritually, numerically, and in many other ways. Our purpose as a church is to know Christ and make Him known for the glory of God. We will labor for the sake of the Gospel in our community so that Christ may be known and worshiped and that the fame of our God may be spread. That is the reason why we desire growth - not growth for the sake of growth or for our own fame.

This is why we will rely on the grace and power of God through the ordinary means of grace: the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, the observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and prayer. We will not utilize gimmicks or fads in an attempt to draw a crowd as if we need somehow to give God a hand. We desire growth, but we will trust in God to produce a church that honors and glorifies Him. This is not growth for the sake of growth, but growth for the glory of God.