Grow Wide
Grow: Rethinking Church Growth - Part 4
May 5, 2024
Luke 14:7-24, Matthew 25:34-46, Romans 12:13, Hebrews 13:2, Leviticus 19:34
Then Jesus said to the person who had invited him, “When you host a lunch or dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected.”
Luke 14:12-14
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Have you ever noticed at church events how easy it is to sit only with our own families and friends? Without even realizing it, we vet people to make sure they are people we would want to be around before we even think about inviting them to join us for a Community meal or even Sunday worship. The tragic reality is that while churches tend to be generally friendly, they are not verry good at making new friends. We are rather insulated and friendly only with those we already know well, sometimes excluding even those who have been in our midst for a long time. I knew a leader in one church who had been there for over 30 years and she said she still felt like a newbie and an outsider because she wasn’t part of one of the founding families. How long does it take for us to make someone feel truly at home?
One congregation I served got very uncomfortable when I rearranged the chairs in the classroom to have Bible Study in a circle. I was told that “we always sit in rows.” They even sat in rows in the fellowship hall at the Christmas party, facing the tree and watching the kids as they greeted Santa, but talking to nobody outside of their own family. Almost all of our time in church was spent literally staring at the back of other people’s heads.
What was even worse was how many people I talked to who struggled with things they were afraid for even their family members to know about, family members who sat next to them on the same pew every week.
Like most churches, this congregation regularly complained about the lack of growth and the fact that visitors rarely returned. At one point I had to ask, what is the point of growing when we can’t even talk to the people we already have? Why do we need more people in the pews just to stare at the back of their heads if we are unwilling to build real, honest and trusting relationships, even within our own families?
In Ephesians 3, Paul says that we are being rooted and grounded in love. Our growth is an act of pure grace, but roots only grow when the environment supplies nutrients, oxygen, warmth, and water. There are many lonely people even in the church, whose roots feel dry, thirsty, wounded, or stagnant. Perhaps the problem is our ecosystem. Are the other plants / people around you healthy or dying? As a tree’s roots meet the roots of other trees, they begin to grow or “graft” together into one larger and healthier root system. This allows the roots to reach out even further, working together to collect water and nutrients and offering mutual benefit to every tree in the network.
The same principle is necessary for spiritual growth and for church growth. We are not lone trees, but part of a spiritual ecosystem in which we all reach out through the Spirit and provide nourishment for one another. We must extend real friendship beyond our comfort zone.
If we want to grow, we must widen our reach.
