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Originally Posted by CC1
I would hope a church would endeavor to do both! What good is it to win people to the Lord if you don't disciple them?
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Absolutely. There are some churches that are baptism mills - they work and push to have people baptized and filled with the HG, but then forget about discipleship.
What is better: a church which baptizes 5,000 in a year and retains 1%, or the church which baptizes 25 in a year and retains them all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CC1
To your point though I do understand there are situations where the size of a church and its growth are constrained by circumstances. For example a church in a small rural community might actually be in an area of declining and aging population. That church could not fairly be judged as not doing a good job if it did not exhbit much growth. On the other hand I don't believe there is any excuse for a church in a populous area not growing as there are plenty of people to reach.
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I was not thinking of this, but you make a good point. There are certainly some smaller cities and towns which could restrict the growth of a church.
There are some churches which are focused on the "instruct, edify and send out" approach. They may not have much numerical growth because they more or less replace believers with new converts. This type of church sends out believers to ministries (missionaries, evangelists, pastors, new church plants, etc) while helping to disciple new converts.
The church my father pastored reached its apex at 175, though the average was closer to 140. During that time, there were several families who moved away into various ministries. Some became pastors of new churches, a few young people went to bible school and either became evangelists or married men who are pastors. Some would look at that and criticize it as lack of growth. Certainly the city was large enough that it could have grown larger, I would not argue that. I do believe the church did well with what it had.
Look at POA. It's been in the current building, which seats approx. 3,000 or so, for over 25 years. It has not added any services, only has the Sunday AM and PM services. However, I would bet there are a lot of families who have left POA to go into ministry somewhere else. I would imagine they have the same kind of circle, where new converts come in, are disciple, and mature believers leave to go into the ministry. I certainly would not criticize Anthony Mangun, or claim POA is not experiencing growth.
I don't know much about CLC or Nathaniel Haney, but I do remember visiting there back in the late 90s and they had numerous church plants throughout the area. It could be they experience the same kind of circle.