So if you want your church
to grow you’ve got to work and build to momentum moments - these can be a whole
range of things. How do you create this? I believe local church-based
evangelism is the way.
A few years back I got
into trouble for an article I wrote about para-church organizations. The heart
of the article was that we should build missionary churches. If we are building missionary churches and
doing what I believe God has called us to do, then para-church organisations
will be less influential. Fewer
resources (money and people) would go to them because we are fulfilling what
God has called His church to do. Because
I believe in the local church the article was actually more of a challenge to
the church than a comment on para-church organisations. The church is the best
way to reach people, to disciple them and see them come through and integrated
into the body of Christ.
A comment on church size
here. If you don’t factor in an awareness of the impact and influence of your
church’s size then you can attend conferences on church growth and either go
away really disappointed at the end of it or you can misapply to your situation
the exhortations you have heard. So, the size of your church will determine the
best way for it to grow and be effective.
You may have heard an exhortation to preach the gospel on Sundays. You may build it into a guest service
programme - but then the exhortation comes to do so every week. Added to which you hear someone like me tell you that we
see people respond practically every week when we preach the gospel.
The difference is often
the size of the church. Some of you know the name of every single person in your
meeting and you will know as you preach that there is no unbeliever in the room
- or perhaps there’s just one person. How you implement such an exhortation will
depend on your church size and on your understanding of the impact that will
have.
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