Supernatural Church Growth
March 2, 2008As a pastor I want to see our church grow – I think any pastor does. I’m not talking about a shallow growth where we just get people in the pews on a Sunday, but the growth where we are seeing more and more people won, discipled and going and doing the same. I’m always learning, always on the look out for tips/keys/best practices that can help our church in this. I believe in strategic thinking and planning, and the importance of faithfulness, excellence and structure to see healthy growth.
A recent post by Perry Noble though, reminded me of the ‘God-factor’ in church growth:
When we first began as a church we had 15 people meeting in a living room…and on our first Sunday we had 115 people show up. (January 16, 2000) Over the next several years we began to grow pretty steadily and actually moved locations once because of God blessing us with new people.
Then…it happened! On August 11th, 2002 we had 506 people–the next week we had 970, two weeks after than we had to add a service and then two weeks after that we had 1,600 people there.
People always wanted to do “what did you do?” Uh…we still don’t know! I am being dead serious when I say we didn’t launch a new program. We didn’t do a mass mailer. We didn’t do door to door visits…it just happened.
I’m also reminded of the testimony of Pastor Jackson Senyonga from Kampala, Uganda:
He is the founder and senior pastor of Christian Life Church in Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa. Jackson once again saw God’s grace at work as the church skyrocketed from seven people to 2,000 in two weeks. Within the first seven months that number grew to 7,000. Today, over 22,000 people attend Christian Life Church each week, and 40,000 are registered as members and that number continues to grow on a daily basis. Christian Life Church (CLC) has planted 600 churches in four countries in Africa.
Don’t get me wrong in all this – I’m not saying we should throw out all of our research, strategic plannning/thinking, strategies and structure. I’m just reminded that the supernatural is when God adds His ’super’ to our ‘natural’. That is what happened in the Book of Acts, that is what happened in great moves of God throughout history, and that is what we need today.
In closing I’m reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul:
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:4-5 NKJV)
Question my friend, is there involvement from God, when a church dwindles…The church I attend, had a switch of pastor a few years ago, and attendance dropped, and still dwindles. Do you think God sometimes shuts the door on a church, so to speak.
Peace,
Hey Brendan,
I always find this question interesting. We actually have run into a lot when doing our remodel for our children’s wing. People asking if we are being carnal in what we are doing. I think the simple answer to it is that everything we do has to be at the guidance and the direction of the Holy Spirit. There are times when the Holy Spirit speaks and it doesn’t make sense to the natural mind (any Christian who has followed the Lord for any amount of time knows about this.) and their are times when he does. The key is that we always are humble before God and always remember that he leads the church not us. Charles Finney is really popular in our area because of the tremendous impact he he had on his tour through this area. Finney expereinced Power that we still talk about to this day, but Finney also believed in using “methods” as well. Here is a quote i came across from Finney..
“the physical, psychological, and physiological laws of nature were so well known…that it is clearly God’s intent that man should make use of them to evangelize the World.”
To me I think of it simply like this…I will listen to God and I will do anything possible to reach people far from Christ. When I stand before Jesus, the only thing I can give an account for is my personal obedience to HIm.
I agree that we want to do whatever we can to reach people, and whatever that means physically we should do it (buildings, media, etc.) But at the same time, I also agree that God must be in what we do. If He is not, then what are we doing?
I’m a worship arts pastor and I firmly believe that God works through our planning. In fact, seeing that he is a God of such order, I believe the very act of planning is a form of worship. I know this isn’t what you’re saying, but there seem to be few times when churches actually plan too much, or strategize too much.
It’s not what we do, but what God does through us, in both planning and allowing ourselves to be led by Him.
Just my thoughts.