What do these numbers mean to you? To those of us familiar with Church Growth
methodologies we recognize that they represent church growth sizes: House
Church, Small Church, Medium Church, Large Church, and Mega Church. We are told that the Mega Church is the
sought after dream and we are told that they are successful because they
satisfy the following needs: Excellence in quality of programs, Wide choices of
programs and styles of worship, Openness to change that attracts younger
people, Low pressure on visitors, and Being Multi-Cultural.
The first and most obvious observation is that this Church
Growth analysis is not biblical. The
assumption that God wants each Church to grow numerically is too simple. God wants His Kingdom to grow, but the prevalent
New Testament pattern is the multiplication of smaller Churches, not
necessarily the growth of Mega Churches.
Second, there is considerable arrogance in the assumption
that small churches cannot have excellence in their worship and programming, or
that they are not open to change, or that they are not multi-cultural. What is true is that each individual small
church will of necessity not provide a wide variety of options; unless of
course they are related to other small churches that have access to “diocesan”
programming. The other thing is the
implication that low pressure on visitors is necessarily a positive value. I would venture to suggest that the prevalent
Church Growth philosophy is determined by American cultural triumphalism rather
than by biblical theology.
