More!

Recently I was reading about a leader who was very pleased that he was able to lead his church from 1000 members to over 3000.  I must admit that it’s impossible to not appreciate that kind of growth. Yet it bothered me that such a thing is worthy of boasting about.  Is leadership in church size the best indication of godly leadership? 

I think I’d rather be known as the leader who inspired a church of 1000 to drop to a church of 900, because they’ve sent 100 workers out to the mission field!  I think I’d rather be known as the leader who inspired a church of 900 to drop to a church of 500 because new leaders were raised up and 4 new churches were daughtered - each with 100 ‘seed’ members who step out in faith by being part of a church plant!   You can probably think of other interesting ways to see growth in God’s Kingdom that not only isn’t measured by growth in numbers, but is actually counter to growth in numbers (at least initially).  In fact, sometimes I wonder if growth in God’s Kingdom can be measured by man’s measurements at all.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for more church adherents and especially for more church members.  More is generally regarded as better, because there is a spiritual law of increase, not a spiritual law of decrease.  We all long to see the fulfillment of Jeremiah 33:22 and similar verses – the growth of God’s Kingdom to the point of an unknowable number.  But isn’t the whole point of those verses the very fact that it is an unknowable number?

When we think of God’s kingdom and growth, we often turn to Isaiah 9:7.  Perhaps we somehow miss that He doesn’t say, ‘of the increase of the numbers of people in His Kingdom there will be no end.’  That may be true – but the Word actually says is, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end.” (ASV).  Could it be that if we count members, we are tempted to ‘get’ the glory (by ascribing growth in numbers to our efforts)?  Could it be that when we cannot count them, God alone can get the glory? 

There are two ways to get to the point where you cannot count the numbers of people worshiping with you.  You can grow the church to the point of being so ridiculously large that counting everyone there is not physically possible.  That will take a long time, cost a great deal of money and will probably result in a wrong focus.   Alternatively, you can spawn new churches AS SOON AS YOU ARE CAPABLE.  That will keep the focus on growing depth of character (manifesting His peace) and on growing faith (manifesting His government).

May I humbly suggest that when we look for more, let’s look for more of Him instead of more of US.