Churchs are not growing.

[Wayne222]

     I just read the smaller churches which were of 100 members or less are not experience any growth. 

                    To me churches until recently in america always were growing. I think faith in God is dead or close to it. Americans don't care about God any more. Or is it something else maybe ?

[Neighbor]

Well perhaps a wrong conclusion?

I have spent time with  let's see 1, 2, 3, and now 4 different churches. Plus I know of several more in some detail that says to me there are plenty of growing local church bodies. Each one having issues associated with accommodating rapid growth of membership and association of believers gathering together to worship our Lord Jesus  building a fellowship where we help one another in  life's adventure.

The one I am presently a member of having just joined formally, has grown  past the capacity of the physical plant, and now has Thursday evening worship services added to the week. Plus they have planted four new bodies of Christ, two locally and two across State all from members that  were encouraged to go and spread the opportunity to have places of worship.

There are other churches with  rapid growth and the spreading of satellite facilities many taking over storefronts like  old K Marts, and strip malls,  making gathering of the saints a reality. Each are flourishing places  of worship and fellowship. I spent 14 years at one here where I was always involved in making room for ever more people. My replacement there, whom I communicate with still, is on a constant search for facility space. We had some 64,000 square foot to work with over nine acres.

Number one problem really is parking space! It is difficult and very expensive to acquire enough land for parking needs and water run off control, and still meet newest building, and life safety, codes. I have a nearly four inch thick Fire Prevention Code binder beside me as I type this. I am still as an old geezer,  volunteering in a very small way to help others much younger and full of energy to serve keep up with knowledge of the financial planning and physical reconstruction needs for assembly and for schools.  

It is a good thing - the codes, but an expensive time consuming and resource draining task to keep up with, yet there is need.  God provides as his servants work diligently at the tasks associated with  keeping facilities up to date and in compliance, along with the building of new faciities  too. Building  to keep up with need and demand is a real intensive task for there is real growth and real hunger for the word of God and for places to gather in worship of  our Lord. 

The church I am associated with now  recently added  Thursday evening worship services identical to Sunday's services. The choices of additional home fellowship groups and small group studies required some twenty three tables set up for sign ups. People are meeting in private residences, restaurant rooms, and the church's rooms  days and nights all through the week at both places  that I am most familiar with today.

Other churches are doing similarly.  Personally I think there may be a quiet revival long underway. Outreach is paramount in almost all the small group goals along with fellowship and education and service.

Private Christian schools are also filled to capacity. There is need of more class space and teachers, administrators, custodial staffs, maintenance workers, both paid and volunteer. It is a good time to ask  our Lord where will You have me to aprticipate, how might I contribute  in prayer, time, talent, gifts of the Spirit, and money. And then to act upon the call  from the Holy Spirit into service.

 

[Michael37]

1 hour ago, Wayne222 said:

     I just read the smaller churches which were of 100 members or less are not experience any growth. 

                    To me churches until recently in america always were growing. I think faith in God is dead or close to it. Americans don't care about God any more. Or is it something else maybe ?

Babylon looks at numbers to pay the hirelings, maintain the assets, and fund the extravagances of crowd pleasing performances which promote "another Christ". The gates of hell will not prevail against the ekklesia of Christ which supercedes and survives all other endeavours. 

[Neighbor]

25 minutes ago, Michael37 said:

Babylon looks at numbers to pay the hirelings, maintain the assets, and fund the extravagances of crowd pleasing performances which promote "another Christ". The gates of hell will not prevail against the ekklesia of Christ which supercedes and survives all other endeavours. 

Seems to me that a worker is worth his wage, and that being paid is proper, it does not make one a hireling. A hireling is one that takes compensation  for effort expended, but has no affinity for the cause he or she serves.

[AnOrangeCat]

Even if the statistics are correct it's also important to consider why smaller churches might not be growing. There are lots of small churches in small towns, and if those small towns aren't experiencing significant growth then their churches won't either. My feeling is that in locations with high population growth and retention the growth of churches scales up proportionately.

[Neighbor]

BTW- I just attended second service this Sunday, (I usually attend Thursday evenings) it was packed to standing room only!  We got up, decided to leave making  a little more room for others, and will  "attend" via internet recording tomorrow instead, and then get back to Thursday evenings.

I do love the local body of Christ Jesus and the challenges that come with it.  We meet so many wonderful individuals  working to serve our Lord Jesus, can hardly get grander than that, least not for me. I get to meet individuals that just radiate testimony of our Lord. They go into all the world with the gospel of Jesus, to  France, Netherlands Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Honduras, Mexico, Connecticut USA, Wyoming USA, Italy,  Israel, China,  Benin, all over this world the word is spread by the missionary  and by the workers that volunteer at personal expense and sacrifice.

The slow steady reports come in perhaps for as long as two decades or more at any one locale, local churches are planted, with local trained leaders taking charge over time, as the seed is nourished through the Holy Spirit. Praise God for the calling that so many receive and are enabled to fulfill.

[Neighbor]

4 hours ago, AnOrangeCat said:

Even if the statistics are correct it's also important to consider why smaller churches might not be growing. There are lots of small churches in small towns, and if those small towns aren't experiencing significant growth then their churches won't either. My feeling is that in locations with high population growth and retention the growth of churches scales up proportionately.

And yet  as I go into the mountain communities  of North Carolina and Georgia store clerks take time to say  "God Bless" and ask, "Has God blessed you today? He has already blessed me this morning". The small country church I attended earlier this month had a nearly full spirit blessed crowd of saints in Christ. The sermon and the teaching was sound, the people strong prayer warriors. So I don't know about this idea that there is not a vibrant local body  of Christ to be found wherever one might seek it out in the USA today. 

 

[Michael37]

 

1 hour ago, Neighbor said:

So I don't know about this idea that there is not a vibrant local body  of Christ to be found wherever one might seek it out in the USA today. 

My point exactly. I have no qualms with the genuine shepherds receiving financial support, just the obsession with large congregations equating to spiritual growth and grand edifices equating to spiritual truth.

[Still Alive]

5 hours ago, Wayne222 said:

     I just read the smaller churches which were of 100 members or less are not experience any growth. 

                    To me churches until recently in america always were growing. I think faith in God is dead or close to it. Americans don't care about God any more. Or is it something else maybe ?

When I moved from Seattle (home for 46 years) to south central rural Kentucky, it was definitely a church culture shock. To make it more "shocking", I joined a Southern Gospel band that toured a LOT of these under 100 member churches. I was in it for two years and ate a lot of potluck.

But I noticed a common theme. The preachers were doing it, basically, for free, and there were a lot of sermons preached that obviously had no preparation. Further, there was a lot of "hell and damnation" preaching - something oddly missing from the book of Acts, from which we should be getting our marching orders. 

And there were often a group of 5 or so men sitting close to the front that did a lot of "amen" and "preach it brother" callouts. One time the preacher even made reference to Satan winning and they said, "amen". I kid you not.

The people in these churches seemed to be a seriously emotionally beaten down lot that were more focused on working their way to heaven and the prevailing tempearature of hell than the actual GOOD NEWS (gospel). And some of those preachers were hopelessly ignorant, and yet preached every misguided message in a spirit of "only the lost disagree with me". 

Frankly, I thought a lot of those churches needed to shut down. I had to leave the band because I could no longer be silent about the teaching I was hearing - and I had a hot mic in front of me and finally used it. It was a simple thing, really, but I told the band leader that that was only the beginning and that I could be silent no more. We both thought it was probably best that I leave the band.

[Willa]

I agree with Still Alive.  If churches are not growing and retaining their teens and young adults there is often a good reason.  Sometimes there have been church splits that have left bitterness and unresolved problems so the church is not healthy. There is definitely a problems if the pastor is not relying on the Holy Spirit to feed the flock with fresh manna from God's word each Sunday.  The old manna has grown putrid.  

Ours has been planting satellite churches in towns 30 miles away because people were tired of traveling that far to church.  I have seen more maturity of Christians here than in previous churches I have attended.  The pastor believes we should be exercising our gifts, leading others to Christ and bringing the new Christians to church.  So he equips us to do the work and to be strong in God's word.  

One son led his wife to Christ; now his sons are leading their girlfriends to Christ and they are attending church with the family.  The other son finds that troubled Christians at work are coming to him with family and marriage problems and he counsels them according to Scripture.  Each according to his own gift.  His children are following after their dad as well and one is an evangelist.  The other grandson is also walking with God in acts of helps or service.  So our church continues to grow even though the services are not getting larger.  We outgrew 5 other facilities and have leveled off at about 1500 people plus 2 satellite church plants.   Now our pastor counsels, encourages and oversees pastors throughout the Northwest USA as well as pastoring his own church.  He is spread thin.   We have also sent out full time and short term missionaries from our congregation.   Healthy churches reach out to their communities and other countries.  They are not ingrown like a bad toenail.  Just as healthy Christians are not focused on self but on Christ's loving compassion for the lost and the wounded.