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Growing Churches

What Makes Churches Grow?

By Martin Hattersley

Can Churches be organized, or do they grow?

Look at the New Testament, and it's quite clear: they are meant to grow. The seed is the Word of God, and, provided the environment is right, the message has a way of growing like yeast in dough, like grain in a field, like trees bearing fruit, to bring in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So I was interested recently to see this thesis developed in an article by German pastor Christian A. Schwartz entitled Natural Church Development. It was based on a very extensive survey of a large number of churches in many parts of the world.

Churches, according to Schwartz, will grow naturally if they score sufficiently well on each one of eight requirements. These are -

• Leadership that empowers others, rather than organization dependent on a single key person.
• Volunteers following their own gifts and callings, not just assigned to the work the church wants them to do.
• Members passionately devoted to their spirituality and their faith, though this may be expressed in many different ways.
• Administrative structures that work.
• Inspiring worship services.
• Supportive small groups among congregational members.
• Evangelism geared to the actual needs of those served.
• An atmosphere of love and caring within the congregation.

Following just a few of these rules, however, is not enough. Just as the speed of a convoy is that of the slowest ship, so the progress of our churches is limited, not by the good things we do, but by the good things we do not do.

Schwartz compares those eight requirements to a tub whose sides are made up of eight staves. The shortest stave is the limit of how much water the tub can hold. So with your church. The church should not be like Shakespeare's pirate captain, who posted nine out of the ten commandments on the deck of his ship for his crew, but left out "Thou shalt not steal", because stealing was the essence of his business. All elements are required.

Examine our parishes. What is strong? What is deficient? Perhaps there are areas where "we simply don't do that here!" Yet experience has shown that if attention is first paid to remedying the greatest deficiencies in the list I have given, the seed of the gospel will thereafter begin to flourish, completely under its own power.

What more could we ask for?

(c) February 2000: J. M. Hattersley