Full hearts, empty churches

"The first human “demon” that normally needs to be exposed is the human addiction to power, prestige, and possessions. These tend to pollute everything. Once we preach the true Gospel, I doubt if we are going to fill the churches."  – Richard Rohr

The church growth movement tends to deny the reality that the Gospel of Jesus just isn't very good at growing churches. 

I've read some really fascinating books on church growth.  We publish statistics about what growing churches are doing.  I've worked with growing churches.  But there is no such thing as a perfect church.  Growing churches tend to grow for a while and then plateau and then decline before the next growth spurt. 

And a church is an organic thing.  My uncle Randy was 4'9" when he was a freshman, and no amount of hanging upside down of retro platform shoes was going to change that.  Randy was healthy and active and set state records that held for decades.  There was nothing wrong with Randy, but he just wasn't going to grow at that time. 

Sometimes it's healthier for a church to not grow.  Or to shrink.  Sometimes it's supremely healthy for a church to shrink by one or two people - and sometimes a church will grow with sheer joy of losing one or two people. 

A problem with a large, sprawling centrist denomination like the United Methodist church is that you could never implement anything across the board.  All progress is incremental - church by church and heart by heart as it probably should be - and as slow as an octogenarian trying to enter any of our many-stepped entrances. 

This is why we focus on becoming vital congregations.  Churches that fit the God shaped whole in the hearts of the people in our communities.  Vital congregations.  Churches that meet the specific needs of the communities around them and offer a place to meet and know God.

My mentor Dr. Smith believes that a growing church is a church that demands much from its congregation.  When he pastored, if someone wanted to transfer their membership he would request a letter from the pastor of the church they just left.  He would routinely ask people to re-take membership classes or attend an additional Bible study before they could join the church.  His goal in every church he served was for the worship attendance to exceed the membership roll. 

In the Western PA annual conference of the United Methodist church, our membership is above 200,000.  Our average attendance is slightly above 50,000.  1/9th of the membership roll attends my home church each Sunday. 

We must make a denominational wide effort to purge the rolls so that we can have an accurate understanding of where we really stand so that we may begin to move forward.  Perhaps as much as a quarter of our membership is fictitious.  Women who cannot be tracked down, but who would be 105 if still alive are still on the membership roll of my home church.  People who have rejected the church and chosen to leave, people who long ago became members of other churches or faiths, or people who have simply moved on or passed on fill the rolls of our churches.  We must contact, invite back, and sadly remove from our rolls those people who are no longer known as Methodists.   

We must ask more of our church members.  We must ask them to be disciples.  Bishop Bickerton ruffled many feathers many years ago when he demanded that everyone on a committee at the church he served must also attend a weekly Bible study.  When met with outrage, he explained that if they didn't have time for a Bible study, they didn't have time to be a trustee.  Disciples make other disciples, church members make messes. 

We must preach the Gospel even when it is contrary to church growth.  Even when it makes us and the unchurched around us uncomfortable.  Even when it hurts.  Even when it offends.

Jesus never begged anyone to follow him.  He routinely encouraged people not to, gave them opportunities to go away, and said things that were so ghastly offensive that it's a wonder anyone stayed.  Jesus spoke to observant Jews who based their lives around cleanliness rules; and he asked them to become cannibals - to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood - which broke every rule imaginable.  Almost everyone left at pronouncement of this invitation.

Jesus wasn't thinking about church growth - he was thinking of a vital church.  A church that really believes what it teaches and really teaches what it believes. 

We must begin to ask the bigger questions about how to give our churches more vitality.