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Have you noticed that people measure a church by its size? Perhaps they look at the size of the sanctuary, or the
size of the mission budget. More likely, though, they look at the number of people on the membership role, or how
many attend worship on an average Sunday.
Size. Size. Size. If you're growing, you're successful. If you're not adding members, there must be
something wrong with you. Or so goes the conventional wisdom.
But actually, church growth, like individual spiritual
growth, moves along four distinct matrices. And very few churches move along all four evenly.
Yes, churches do grow in membership. They also grow more spiritually mature.
They grow organizationally. And they grow in their ability to embody the way and life of
Jesus Christ.
Longtime church consultant and author, Loren Mead, refers to these four ways of
growing as: numerical, maturational, organic, and incarnational growth.
The fixation of American churches on numerical growth may cause many church
leaders and members to miss the other three important areas of growth. Maturational
growth, for instance, has to do with how members of a church are maturing in their
understanding of what it means to be Christian. It doesn't take a big church to grow a deeper faith.
Organizational growth has to do with how a church adapts to changing circumstances. Does the structure of
your common life allow your church to effectively meet the needs of members? Does it allow your church to
work effectively with other civil and religious institutions? Some churches don't. They have organizational structures
that prevent effective ministry.
The question of incarnational growth is related to whether church members are successfully incorporating
the stories and examples of Christian life. The test of incarnational growth is the membership's ability to live the
values of Christ in the world, every day. A church could be very successful at drawing crowds, but fail to show
much evidence of transformed lives.
To grow a strong and successful church, don't focus only on numbers. Numbers are often controlled by
community and cultural circumstances, over which your church has no control. Being located in a declining town, or in a
rural area, are examples. Rather, remember growth is multifaceted. And even a small church can bear a big witness
for Christ.
To learn more about the four matrices of church growth, you can read
More Than Numbers: The Ways Churches Grow, by Loren Mead (The Alban Institute, 1993). To order the book—which includes brief worksheets to
help evaluate a church's growth on each matrix—call The Alban Institute at (202) 244_7320.
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