CHURCH-GROWTH
Conservative
churches will stop growing if they do not awaken. Mouthing traditional
platitudes will not suffice. A return to the theology of the Bible we rightly
call infallible and inerrant is needed. Biblical definitions of evangelism,
conversion, baptism, and discipleship must be recovered. Worship of numbers
must cease. Courage to be God's remnant must emerge.
Paul R. House & Gregory A. Thornbury, Who Will Be Saved?
Crossway Books, 2000, p. 166.
If Jesus
Christ is the head of the church and hence the source and goal of its entire
life, true growth is only possible in obedience to Him. Conversely, if the
church becomes detached from Jesus Christ and His Word, it cannot grow however
active and successful it may seem to be.
Os Guinness
Dining with the Devil, Baker, 1993, p.
39.
One would
think that (persecution) would be an obstacle to church growth when joining the
church meant a death sentence. And yet, the age of persecution was the greatest
period of church growth in history.
Gene Edward Veith
Tabletalk, vol. 28, n. 8, p. 18, Ligonier
Ministries, Used by Permission.
In order to
see God’s church grow, we should use the means God has given to us… Preaching
the Gospel is the normal way God grows His church. Added to this there is also
prayer. Again and again in the book of Acts we find the early Christians in
prayer. And as we beseech God for conversion and for maturity, we find God
granting our prayers. The more we pray the more we acknowledge that God is the
reason for any growth that comes. We acknowledge, in humility, that any growth
that comes does not ultimately come from us.
Mark Dever
God-Given
Growth, Tabletalk, October 2007, p. 10. Used by Permission of Ligonier
Ministries.
It seems
ironic at first, but trading in size for faithfulness as the yardstick for
success is often the path to legitimate numerical growth.
Mark Dever and Paul
Alexander
The
Four P’s, taken from The Deliberate Church, © 2005, Crossway Books, a division
of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, p. 40, www.crosswaybooks.org.
Numerical
bigness has become an infectious epidemic
Carl Henry
Quoted in: God-Given Growth by Mark Dever, Tabletalk,
October 2007, p. 10. Used by Permission of Ligonier Ministries.
I reviewed
some of the church growth material coming from our denominational headquarters.
One publication said that, in order to get our churches growing again, we
should “open the front doors and close the back doors”… What we actually need
to do is to close the front door and open the back door! If we really want to
see our churches grow, we need to make it harder to join and we need to be
better about excluding people. We need to be able to show that there is a
distinction between the church and the world – that it means something to be a Christian.
If someone who claims to be a Christian refuses to live as a Christian should
live, we need to follow what Paul said and, for the glory of God and for that
person’s own good, we need to exclude him or her form membership in the church.
Mark Dever
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway,
2000, p. 156-157.
[Church] growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the
cancer cell.
Author Unknown
Change can be
difficult! There is a natural resistance to change, but sometimes we (the
church) struggle a little too much with change, making it harder than it needs
to be. After all, things have changed a lot in the last 2,000 years and they
will continue to do so until the return of Christ. Some of the most effective
words that hinder a church from moving forward are “we’ve never done it that
way before.”
Stephen Anderson
Preparing to Build, AMI, 2006, p. 141.
Whatever means you use to get people into the church is precisely
what you must use to keep them. If you get them with a “religious circus,” then
you must keep the circus going – keep up the entertainment. If you get them
with biblical preaching and teaching, then that will keep them
and you will not need the entertainment.
Ernest Reisinger
If there were
such a thing as a seeker, what would he be seeking? The church growth movement
seems to believe he would be seeking more of the same. In a world consumed with
lighthearted entertainment, we offer up less professional, less entertaining
lighthearted entertainment? Why, I keep wondering, would a “seeker” get up on a
Sunday morning, and travel to some giant box to hear a third rate rock band
preceding a third rate comic giving a third rate “message” that leaves him in
the same state that he arrived in?
R.C. Sproul Jr.
Pragmatic
Principle, Tabletalk, October 2007, p. 59. Used by Permission of Ligonier
Ministries.