A TEST

At least once a week, or it seems that way, I come across an article or a book or an advertisement about church growth. Everybody is into church growth these days. Of course, church decline does not sell. Everyone can tell you how a church can decline – people move away; the community, both local and faith, grows older and older and no one moves in to replace them, etc. We even know how to decline a church: make sure to keep the controversial pot stirred, whatever the present controversy may be, make one up, if necessary; be exclusive and unwelcoming, and so forth.

   But how to grow a church, that is another matter, ripe for one recipe after another. There is a whole cookbook of ideas out there. Some work; some do not; all seem at least viable if not interesting and sure to work. The “experts” can even tell us what some characteristics of a growing church are, were we to ask. So I asked. Well, not quite true. I did not ask. They were offered at a recent conference I attended. They came in the form of a true-false test. None of the participants aced the test – which follows.

   True or false: “Growing congregations” 1) have adequate and appropriate facilities; 2) have a strong sense of tradition and their past; 3) have a large proportion of their households earning more than $75,000; 4) are most effective in reaching mature adults; 5) avoid controversial issues like social justice; 6) have worship facilities large enough to hold their active membership; 7) have more that 60% young adult members; 8) are pastor-centered; 9) down-play their Episcopal identity; 10) focus on one or two ministry “specialties.”

   Interesting, isn’t it? What is even more interesting is that they are all false, except for one. And I’m not going to tell which one. The answer will surprise you, I suspect, if you are like everyone else at that conference. Nevertheless, the point of the conference was at least three-fold. First, the old ways at growing a congregation and spreading the Good News are no longer working and we must find new ones to grow.  Second, we must grow because that is the Gospel mandate. Jesus’ last words on earth, according to Matthew 28, were that the church was to go out and make disciples of all people. Well, we haven’t, which is quite obvious and which means there is more growing to do.