Sermon Illustrations on church growth
Background
The Shadow Side of Church Growth
The disgraced megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll once described his church’s growth by saying that there was “a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, he added, “and, by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done.” Though Mars Hill would close not too many years after Driscoll spoke those awful words, his remarks map quite neatly onto a post-Trumpian evangelicalism that has left behind its first love and instead embraced a gospel of power and wealth. And there is indeed a mountain of bodies in its wake. Many of them are known to me.
…It is about the broader question of how we build flourishing communities shaped by the truths taught in the Christian faith. The goal is not merely to see the faith passed on to our children but also to see others enter the community and similarly be nourished and in time drawn to Christ themselves. And much of that has to do with the question of place, home, and the daily practices that shape those places.
Taken from: In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World by Jake Meador Copyright (c) 2019 by Jake Meador. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
The Two Essentials
The only “church growth formula” the early church possessed was the body of truth flowing with the blood of grace. They drew thousands to Jesus by being like Jesus. But what does it mean to “be like Jesus”? We could come up with long lists of His character qualities. But the longer the list, the less we can wrap our minds around it. (I can’t even juggle three balls. How could I juggle dozens?) But what if the character of Christ was reducible to two ingredients? In fact, it is:… Jesus is full of two things: grace and truth.
What Church Growth Ought to Look Like
In smaller congregations any growth is usually highly prized, but wise pastors realize that not all growth is good growth. Also, missional pastors know that the best growth is conversion growth. A healthy congregation grows through the process of reproduction.
Paul D. Borden, Make or Break Your Church in 365 Days: A Daily Guide to Leading Effective Change.
Stories
Could You Wait Until We Die First?
Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he called a meeting of the Session (the governing board in a Presbyterian church) and brought them a daunting dose of reality by showing them that at the rate they were losing members and hemorrhaging money they could predict when they would have to close their doors. The pastor reminded them that they had called him to “turn the church around” and bring in new families in what is a community where the demographic trends are in their favor.
Convinced that the urgency of the moment would lead to their support of his change initiatives, he asked them for more clear and vocal support. They all timidly assured him that they would. But later, one older member called him aside “‘Pastor, we all know that you need to bring some changes or the church is going to die. It’s just that this is our church, and while we know it needs to change, we like it the way it is.
Could we just figure out how to delay those changes until after some of us die first?” The pastor told me, “I had to explain to them that because they took better care of their physical health than the spiritual health of the church that it was likely that the church would die before they did.” At times of crisis or crossroads of change, anxious relationship systems default back to what is known, believing that it is the only path to self-preservation and survival, even if it means returning to slavery (Exodus 16:3).
Taken from Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change by Tod E Bolsinger. Copyright (c) 2021 by Tod E Bolsinger. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
We’ve Added Color!
I was taking a tour of the Church of Scotland’s beautiful Glasgow Cathedral, which is technically the High Kirk of Glasgow. It is estimated that over 50,000 university students live within walking distance of this extraordinary building. The congregation of the church itself is down to a remnant of less than two hundred people. So I purposely asked the docent leading the tour, “If this building still houses an active congregation, what is being done to reach these 50,000 students with the good news of Jesus?”
Her response was stunning. “The people we have who are active in this church are mostly old. And as you may well know,” she said, “young people these days are not that interested in religion. But we’re trying and we’re making adjustments. For example, the Church of Scotland has historically used black or dark vestments for our clergy. But recently, to be more relevant, we’ve added color!” I was so stunned I could barely contain myself.
Humor
We’ve Added Color!
I was taking a tour of the Church of Scotland’s beautiful Glasgow Cathedral, which is technically the High Kirk of Glasgow. It is estimated that over 50,000 university students live within walking distance of this extraordinary building. The congregation of the church itself is down to a remnant of less than two hundred people. So I purposely asked the docent leading the tour, “If this building still houses an active congregation, what is being done to reach these 50,000 students with the good news of Jesus?”
Her response was stunning. “The people we have who are active in this church are mostly old. And as you may well know,” she said, “young people these days are not that interested in religion. But we’re trying and we’re making adjustments. For example, the Church of Scotland has historically used black or dark vestments for our clergy. But recently, to be more relevant, we’ve added color!” I was so stunned I could barely contain myself.
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