WHAT IS A SUCCESSFUL CHURCH?

If you believe the church growth specialists it is all about numbers. The idea is to build the biggest church that you can numerically which can be done by giving people what they want, not what they need.

A pastor once told me that success was being “faithful.” This did not necessarily include gaining new converts. It is probably good that is how he felt because his church didn’t produce any new converts.

If you go by what you see, ‘success’ is determined by how well you maintain the status quo, doing the same thing every week.

Back in the old days, numbers did not figure too much in a churches success. They were all about sin, salvation and sanctification. I can remember well sermons that focused on the scriptures that talked about holiness of living and separation from the world. Prosperity and my needs came a distant last if at all. We were there for the King and his Kingdom.

In other words, the depth of the heart was more important than the size of the crowd.

The New Testament Church did not worry about numbers. They didn’t have to as the Holy Spirit added daily to their numbers, sometimes as many as 3,000 people. They got on with being Christians, or as they were known then, believers of “The Way” which was a sect of Judaism.

The Holy Spirit was able to add daily because, and I believe that this is a key to a successful church; they produced disciples, not attenders. A disciple is one who learns what his master says and does and then goes and does the same. Jesus said we are his disciples if we keep his commandments. When was the last time you heard someone teach about a commandment of Jesus? One like “Go, sell all you have and give to the poor and then come and follow me”. Or the one that says to take up your cross daily and follow him or to paraphrase “Jesus comes first in everything”.

Producing disciples is the real mark of a successful church according to scripture. Whether you have a congregation of five, 50 or 5,000 is not really relevant. What is relevant is are you producing numbers or disciples?

Gideon’s 300 make it quite clear that God does not need vast numbers to achieve his purposes. He does however need disciples. Are you a number or a disciple? If you are not a disciple, can I suggest you gather a few people around you to study the scriptures and find out what it means to be a disciple, find out what the master has said and then follow in the master’s footsteps.

What that will mean for you will be determined by the master.