The Church that Grows and Disappears

In the last several months I’ve worshipped many times in congregations that are small, and are not growing rapidly. Yet they are strong and faithful in social contexts where the public worship of Jesus Christ offers no public reward and may well have a social cost. 

I’ve come to realize as a missionary and teacher of evangelism that church growth, whether at a congregational or denominational level does not indicate one way or the other God’s presence or blessing in the church. It indicates only that that church has temporarily met some pressing need within a particular cultural context. A church that grows rapidly may as rapidly disappear. 

All successful social movements face a problem: they become ubiquitous in a culture to the extent that they merge with it and disappear as a distinctive movement. This is particularly the case with religious movements. They may have distinctive institutions, such as churches and temples, but these are so widespread and publicly accessible that they are no more distinctive than a restaurant chain or public service. 

But don’t they have a distinctive message? Possibly, but most American Christian communities have a distinctive messages in the same way that Appleby’s has a distinctive menu. Both draw from a larger palate of culturally available options. Christianity shaped and even created those options, but hardly has an exclusive claim to them now. Christian churches are distinctive by omission and inclusion from the palate, not by offering something new from outside the culture. Christian communities appear to be largely curated from culture rather than being created by the Holy Spirit.

One reason for the inability to convey a gospel from outside the culture, good news that is actually news, is that American Christian churches crave growth as the primary basis for their self-worth, which is typically American. United Methodist conservatives brag about how theirs are the only growing churches. Progressives complain that they could grow if they were not associated with the conservatives. Neither claim can stand serious scrutiny and both reveal how American both groups are. 

As I read the New Testament, whenever large numbers gather around Jesus or his apostles it is a prelude to mass infidelity. To brag about church growth is simply saying that you’ve embraced soil that is thin, rocky, and thorn benighted to raise your crop. And amazingly, you then blame your less “successful” fellow Christians for infidelity. 

Pruning and weeding, constant Biblical metaphors, are unknown to United Methodism. The WCA’s stated desire to include LGBTQ persons in their churches while holding firm against same sex marriage, much like progressive inclusion for the sake of attracting millennials, appear little more than ways of maintaining or increasing market share within culturally dictated forms of teaching on sexuality. 

The mega-churches I visit are, to draw on another parable, a mixture of wheat and weeds. But I’ve never heard a pastor tell his congregation that many are destined for the fire. The prospect of hell is always reserved for those outside the church, which yields a harvest of self righteousness to be sure.

Our problem began when American evangelism (from which all United Methodism derives) became in the mid 19th century primarily a form of emotional manipulation that empowered and enriched both preachers or churches. With the acceptance of “the use of means” in evangelism the church let marketing acumen replace the Holy Spirit. Have drunk America’s commercial culture to the dregs evangelism became less about salvation than gathering a solid customer base for the ecclesial business. That business might well be the betterment of the individual and the promotion of the social good for both were solid American values. It might include Christen discipleship and a life of faith. But as a business it needed to grow, and American Methodists learned to do whatever it took to make it grow, and thus embedded themselves completely in the culture. 

Or better cultures - for there has never been a single American culture. Our current conflicts are in fact culture clashes far more than theological or ethical clashes, because we really don’t have a theology or an ethic that transcends our cultural settings. 

When church growth is the purpose of evangelism then it is invariably manipulative, socially in some cultural realms and emotionally in others. After Charles Finny the demand for a public decision became a means of placing one individual under the emotional control of another. Coming to the altar to be publicly “accepted” became a way of closing a deal based on the desire for acceptance so prevalent in American society. It is the Christian equivalent of handing out customer rewards cards; a false promise that a person is special in return for faux loyalty. Both sides know they won’t miss the other when they go.

But it produces growth, because it constantly assures the customer base of their spiritual superiority while inviting the uninitiated into whatever comforts and challenges their particular cultural setting has taught them to value. With the right marketing strategies and an attractive pastoral product it almost certainly succeeds. For a generation. 

Then the pastor dies, or is caught in a scandal. Perhaps the church finds a worthy successor. Perhaps it has developed a sufficiently robust product independent of the personality to continue to thrive. After all, Tesla will survive Elon Musk. But it is also possible that the customers will turn elsewhere, leaving behind ecclesial ruins like the Crystal Cathedral or Riverside Church. There are no churches to big to fail. And there are many that have succeeded and yet have disappeared into the dominant culture. 

And this is why I reject church growth as any measure of fidelity to the gospel or even as an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit. A church may be a million miles wide and growing, but in soil an inch deep. Then where will it be when the sun shines down with its full heat? It may possess all the wealth and power that comes from having thousands of rich members, but where will it be when the markets crash and the wealthy scatter to other havens? 

The scripture teaches that there are these qualities to look for in a church: that it be planted in good soil, that its members have deep roots, that they seek living water, and that theybear fruit. The last of course, being the only quality visible to the world. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Not, I note, church growth.