Many churches today are hyper-focused on increasing their church numbers. Attendance is their only focus. While the goal of spreading the gospel is noble, we need to understand that many are not interested at all in the spreading of the gospel. Instead, they are focused only on the numbers. The primary goal of many churches is a simple increase in the number of members. I want to tell you not to worry about church numbers. In fact, church numbers do not matter.
When recruitment becomes the focus, by definition, God becomes removed from focus. When we try to simply inflate church numbers, we miss the point of religion.
Reverence is decreased when recruitment is increased. In fact, many churches learn the hard way that tight rigidity does not always lead to rapid growth. Even though more traditional churches are growing today, they are still growing at a mild to moderate rate.
What happens in large churches is that they grow quickly and then burst. Similar to the way an inflated economy grows and then bursts. People become disenchacted with what large mega churches have to offer. Very few people are content with the way a large church is. They typically go one of two main directions. They either search for more entertaining church and progress more and more towards liberalism, or they revert to conservatism.
Mild liberalism is never enough. We will almost always gravitate towards more extreme forms of whatever we are already participating in.
So by making church numbers the focus, the word of God is diluted. Churches reduce their standards and try to make church fun. The church was never meant to be fun, it was meant to be reverent. It was meant to be a place where people worshipped the almighty God.
Focusing on mere numbers misses the point of the church altogether. The focus of bible study and worship is first and foremost about worshipping God. Secondly, it is about developing the individual faith. This development of faith does not come about by easiness and fun church events. Rather it comes through wrestling with the difficult questions of the bible and enduring difficulty with a positive mental attitude.
“How can we appeal to outsiders”. That is not the question we should be asking.
The worship assembly of God is not designed for the non-Christian individual. this is why inviting people to church is not a great evangelistic tool. If you invite someone to church and they come, they will have no idea what is going on. they will have no idea about the significance of any of the events or practices. And they will not have any of the background knowledge that would cause the worship assembly to make any sense.
No, the church should not be used as our primary evangelistic tool. We spread the gospel through individual relationship and study, not through mass church attendance. In fact, inviting people to church is another one of those passive modalities like influence that people recommended, but in reality, is a poor excuse to avoid active action.
“How can we spread the gospel of Christ?” This should be the question.
Then we are focused on growing the church the correct way. Not by chasing mere numbers, but by spreading the truth.
Worship is not about visitors, it is about God. It has always been that way and it must remain that way if worship is to be appropriate.
If you find yourself in a congregation that puts too much focus on merely “getting the numbers up”, call attention to this in a diplomatic way. Try to help people understand that the number isn’t the goal, but rather the true growth of the church is the goal. And though the two sound similar, they are not the same.
