It has been my observation that many proponents of modern church-growth teaching are out of touch with average pastors around the world. The very large majority of pastors shepherd flocks that consist of less than a hundred people. Many of these pastors become disheartened after trying church-growth techniques that don’t work or that backfire through no fault of their own. No one seems to admit that there are several factors beyond the control of pastors that limit the growth of their churches. Let us consider some of them now.

First and foremost, church growth is limited by the size of the local population. It is obvious that most large institutional churches are found in large metropolitan areas. They often have millions of people from which to draw church members. If numbers, however, are a true determination of success, then a church should be judged, not by size, but by its percentage of the local population. On that basis, some churches of ten people are much more successful than other churches of ten thousand. A church with ten members in a village of fifty people is more successful than a church of ten thousand in a city of five million. (Yet those ten-people pastors will never be asked to speak at a church-growth convention.)

There are other techniques being promoted today as essential for church growth besides the seeker-sensitive church model. Many of these other techniques are unbiblical and fall under the category of “spiritual warfare.” They are advertised using such names as “pulling down strongholds,” “warfare prayer,” and “spiritual mapping.”

We’ll consider some of these practices in a later chapter about spiritual warfare. In short, however, we might wonder why such practices that were completely unknown to the apostles would be considered necessary for church growth today.

Many of the new means of church growth are the result of the experiences of a few pastors who say, “I did this and that, and my church grew. So if you do the same things, your church will also grow.” The truth is, however, that there was no real connection between the growth of their churches and the peculiar things they did, even though they thought otherwise. This is proven repeatedly when other pastors follow those peculiar teachings and do the identical things, and their churches don’t grow at all.

A church-growth pastor might be heard to say, “When we started screaming at the demons over our city, revival broke out in our church. So you need to start screaming at demons if you want revival to come to your church.”

But why have there been so many wonderful revivals around the world in the past 2,000 years of church history where there was no one screaming at demons over cities? This shows that, even though that pastor thought the revival was a result of screaming at demons, he was mistaken. More likely, people within his city started becoming receptive to the gospel, perhaps as a result of the united prayers of the church, and that pastor happened to be there preaching the gospel when they became receptive. Most often, church growth is the result of being at the right place at the right time. (And the Holy Spirit helps us be at the right places at the right times.)

If screaming at demons over cities brought revival to a certain pastor’s church, why, after a length of time, did the revival slow and then cease, as it always does? If screaming at demons is the key, then it stands to reason that if we just keep screaming at the demons, everyone in the city will come to Christ. But they don’t.

The truth is obvious when we simply give it a little thought. The only biblical means of church growth are prayer, preaching, teaching, disciple-making, the help of the Holy Spirit, and so on. And even those biblical means don’t guarantee church growth, because God has made people free moral agents. They can choose to repent or not repent. It could be said that even Jesus failed at the cause of church growth at certain times when cities He visited did not repent.

All of this is to say that we only need to practice biblical means for building the church. Anything else is a waste of time. They are works that consist of wood, hay, and straw that will one day be burned in the fire and go unrewarded (see 1 Cor. 3:12-15).

Finally, the goal should not be just growth in numbers, but disciple making. If the church grows as we make disciples, then praise God!

So you are a pastor and you want your church to grow. That is a very common desire among pastors. But why do you want your church to grow? What is the honest reason in your heart?

Do you want your church to grow so that you can feel successful? Do you want to be respected and feel influential? Do you want to yield power over people? Do you hope to gain wealth? Those are all wrong reasons for wanting your church to grow.

If you want your church to grow so that God can be glorified as more and more lives are transformed by the Holy Spirit, then that is the right reason to desire church growth.

It is possible, of course, for us to fool ourselves, thinking our motives are pure when in fact they are actually selfish.

How can we know our true motives? How can we know if we truly want to build God’s kingdom or simply build our own kingdom?

One way is by monitoring our inward reactions to the success of other pastors. If we think our motives are pure, if we think that we sincerely want God’s kingdom and His church to grow, but we discover some envy or jealousy in our hearts when we hear of other churches’ growth, it reveals that our motives are less than pure. It shows that we really aren’t so interested in the church growing, but in our own church growing. And why is that? Because our motives are at least partially selfish.

We can also check our motives by monitoring our inward reaction when we hear of a new church that is starting in our area. If we feel threatened, that is a sign that we are more concerned about our own kingdom than God’s kingdom.

Even pastors of large or growing churches can check their motives by this same means. Such pastors might also ask themselves some questions, such as, “Would I ever consider planting new churches by sending and relinquishing key leaders and people from my congregation, resulting in my church becoming smaller?” A pastor who is very resistant to such an idea is likely building his church for his own glory. (On the other hand, a pastor of a large church could plant new churches for his own glory as well, just so he can boast of how many churches have been birthed from his church.) Another question he could ask himself would be, “Do I associate with pastors of smaller churches or have I distanced myself from them, having obtained a higher class?” Or, “Would I be willing to only pastor just twelve to twenty people in a house church, or would that be too hard on my ego?”^[1]

^[1] Here is another advantage of the house church model—pastors aren’t striving to have large congregations for the wrong reasons, because congregation size is limited by house size.

The seeker-sensitive model is generally void of apostles and evangelists, because the primary figure is the pastor. A question: Does the elimination of apostles and evangelists from evangelizing, and the giving of their responsibility to pastors a superior means of obtaining church growth?^[1]

The seeker-sensitive pastor preaches once a week in a Sunday service where Christians are encouraged to bring unsaved people. Thus, generally speaking, the gospel can be heard only once a week by unsaved associates of church members. Those unsaved people must be willing to come to church, and they must be invited by church members who are willing to invite them to church. In the biblical model, apostles and evangelists continually proclaim the gospel in public and private places, and all believers share the gospel with their friends and neighbors. Of these two models, through which would the most unsaved people hear the gospel?

The seeker-sensitive model requires an acceptable building that believers are not ashamed to invite their unsaved associates to and which their unsaved associates are not ashamed to visit. This always requires a substantial sum of money. Before the gospel can be “spread,” an acceptable building must be obtained or constructed. In America, that building must be in a good location, usually in wealthy suburbs. By contrast, the biblical model requires no special buildings, special locations or money. The spread of the gospel is not limited to the number of people who can fit into special buildings on Sundays.

^[1] This is much of the reason why today we have so many evangelists, teachers, prophets and even apostles pastoring churches. So many God-given ministries are not given a rightful place or any place within the institutional church structure, and so non-pastoral ministers end up pastoring churches, robbing the church of the greater blessing they could be to the larger body of believers within a biblical structure. It seems everyone has reverted to building his own kingdom in the form of an institutional church, regardless of his true calling. Because pastors supposedly have the right to “their peoples'” tithes, and much of that goes to constructing and maintaining buildings, non-pastoral ministers resort to pastoring churches just to gain financial support for the ministries to which they are actually called.

Second, church growth is limited by the degree of saturation among receptive people by all the churches in a given region. At any certain time, there are only so many people in an area whose hearts are open to the gospel. Once those receptive ones are all reached, no church will grow, unless some already-churched people transfer to another church (which is how many large churches have grown—at the expense of other churches within their regions).

Of course, every current Christian was unreceptive to the gospel at one time but became receptive under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is very possible that people who are currently unreceptive will become receptive. When they do, churches can grow. What we often refer to as “revival” occurs when many unreceptive people suddenly become receptive. We should not forget, however, that one person becoming receptive is also a revival, only on a smaller scale. Every big revival begins with just one person becoming receptive. So pastor, do not despise the day of small beginnings.

Jesus sent His disciples out to preach the gospel to cities that He knew would be unreceptive, where not one single person would repent (see Luke 9:5). Yet Jesus still sent them to preach the gospel there. Were those disciples unsuccessful? No, even though they had no converts (and no church growth) they were successful, because they obeyed Jesus.

Likewise, Jesus still sends pastors to villages, cities and suburbs where He knows that only a small percentage of the people will ever be receptive to the gospel. Those pastors who faithfully serve their small congregations are successful in God’s eyes, even though they may be failures in the eyes of some church-growth experts.

All pastors in every area should also be encouraged by the fact that, because of God’s great mercy, and in answer to His peoples’ intercession, He is working to help unreceptive people become receptive. He attempts to influence unsaved people by means of their consciences, His creation, circumstances, His temporal judgments, the living testimony of His church, the preaching of the gospel, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. So pastor, take heart. Keep obeying, praying and preaching. Before every large-scale revival there first exists the great need for a revival. And there always exists someone who is dreaming of a revival. Keep dreaming!

A third factor that limits the growth of individual churches is the ability of the pastor. The majority of pastors do not have the skills that are necessary to oversee a large congregation, and it is no fault of their own. They are simply not gifted organizationally, administratively or with the preaching/teaching skills that are necessary for a large congregation. Clearly, such pastors are not called by God to pastor large congregations, and they would be wrong to attempt to pastor anything but an average-size institutional church or house church.

I recently read a popular book on the subject of leadership by the senior pastor of one of American’s largest churches. As I read the pages he had filled with his experienced advice for modern pastors, my overriding thought was this: “He isn’t telling us how to be a pastor—he is telling us how to be a chief executive officer of a huge corporation.” And there is no other choice for the American institutional mega-church senior pastor. He needs a large staff of helpers, and managing that staff is a full-time job. The author of the book I was reading was skilled enough to be the chief executive officer of a large secular corporation. (Indeed, in his book he often quoted famous big-business management consultants, applying their advice to his readership of pastors.) But many, if not most, of his readers do not have the leadership and management skills that he has.

In that same book, the author candidly related how, on several occasions as he built his huge congregation, he had made almost-fatal mistakes, errors that could have cost him his family or his future in the ministry. By the grace of God, he survived. His experiences, however, reminded me of the many instances when other institutional pastors, striving for the same kind of success, made similar errors and suffered total shipwreck. Some, devoting themselves to their churches, lost their children or ruined their marriages. Some suffered nervous breakdowns or severe ministerial burnout. Others became so disillusioned that they ultimately abandoned the ministry altogether. Many others survived, but that is about all that can be said. They continue living lives of quiet desperation, wondering if their super-human sacrifice is worth it.

As I read that particular book, it continually reinforced in my mind the wisdom of the early church, where there was nothing that resembled modern institutional churches, and no pastor was responsible for a flock larger than twenty-five or so people. As I stated in a previous chapter, many pastors who think their congregations are too small should reconsider their ministries in light of Scripture. If they have fifty people, their churches might actually be too large. If there is capable leadership within, they might prayerfully consider dividing into three house churches and selling their building, with the goal of making disciples and building God’s kingdom God’s way.

If this seems too radical, they might at least begin to disciple future leaders, or start small groups, or if they already have some small groups, set some free to be autonomous house churches to see what happens.

Not every house church needs to be structured the same, and there is room for a lot of variation. Every house church should reflect its own cultural and social nuances—one reason why house churches can be very effective in evangelism, especially in countries that have no Christian cultural tradition. House church members don’t invite their neighbors to a church building that appears completely foreign to them where they would be involved in rituals that are completely foreign to them—major obstacles to conversions. Rather, they invite their neighbors to a meal with their friends.

The common meal is generally a major component of a house church meeting. For many house churches, that meal includes or is the Lord’s Supper, and each individual house church can decide how to best bring out its spiritual significance. As previously mentioned, the original Lord’s Supper began as an actual Passover meal that was packed with spiritual significance by itself. Celebrating the Lord’s Supper as a meal or part of a meal is the apparent pattern followed when the early believers gathered. We read of the early Christians:

And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer….And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart (Acts 2:42, 46; emphasis added).

The early Christians were literally taking loaves of bread, breaking them, and sharing them together, something that was done at practically every meal in their culture. Could that breaking of bread during a meal have had some spiritual significance to the early Christians? The Bible doesn’t say for certain. However, William Barclay writes in his book, The Lord’s Supper, “It is not in doubt that the Lord’s Supper began as a family meal or a meal of friends in a private house….The idea of a tiny piece of bread and a sip of wine bears no relation at all to the Lord’s Supper as it originally was….The Lord’s Supper was originally a family meal in a household of friends.” It is amazing that every modern biblical scholar agrees with Barclay, yet the church still follows its tradition rather than God’s Word on this issue!

Jesus commanded His disciples to teach their disciples to obey all that He had commanded them, so when He commanded them to eat bread and drink wine together in remembrance of Him, they would have taught their disciples to do the same. Could that have been done at common meals? It certainly seems as if it was when we read some of Paul’s words to the Corinthians believers:

Therefore when you meet together [and he is not talking about meeting in church buildings, because there were none] it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk (1 Cor. 11:20-21; emphasis added).

How would such words make any sense if Paul was speaking about the Lord’s Supper as it is practiced in modern churches? Have you ever heard of the problem of anyone in a modern church service taking his own supper first, and one being hungry while another one is drunk in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper? Such words would only make sense if the Lord’s Supper was done in conjunction with a real meal. Paul continues:

What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God [remember, Paul was not writing about a church building, but a gathering of people, the church of God], and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you (1 Cor. 11:22).

How would people be shamed who had nothing if what was being done was not in the context of an actual meal? Paul was pointing out the fact that some of the Corinthian believers who arrived earliest at their gatherings ate their own meal without waiting for the others to arrive. When some arrived who were perhaps so poor that they brought no food to share at the common meal, they were not only left hungry, but also shamed because it was so obvious they had brought nothing.

Immediately after this, Paul wrote more about the Lord’s Supper, a sacrament that he “received from the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:23), and he recounted what happened at the first Lord’s Supper (see 1 Cor. 11:24-25). He then warned the Corinthians against partaking of the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, stating that if they didn’t judge themselves, they could actually eat and drink judgment upon themselves in the form of weakness, sickness and even premature death (see 1 Cor. 11:26-32).

He then concluded,

So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you may not come together for judgment (1 Cor. 11:33-34).

Contextually, the offense being committed at the Lord’s Supper was inconsideration of other believers. Paul again warned that those who were eating their own supper first at what was supposed to be a shared, common meal, were in danger of being judged (or disciplined) by God. The solution was simple. If one was so hungry that he couldn’t wait for the others, he should eat something before he came to the gathering. And those who arrived earliest should wait for those who arrived later for the meal, a meal that apparently included or was the Lord’s Supper.

When we look at the entire passage, it seems clear Paul was saying that if it was the Lord’s Supper that was being eaten, it would be done in a way that it was pleasing to the Lord, reflecting love and consideration for each other.

In any case, it is crystal clear that the early church practiced the Lord’s Supper as part of a common meal in homes without an officiating clergy. Why don’t we?

The common meal could occur before or after a meeting in which worship, teachings and spiritual gifts are shared. It is up to each individual house church to determine its format, and formats can vary from gathering to gathering of the same house church.

It is very clear from Scripture that the early church gatherings were quite different from modern institutional church services. In particular, 1 Corinthians 11-14 gives us an abundance of insight into what happened when the early Christians gathered, and there isn’t any reason to think that the same format cannot and should not be followed today. It is also clear that what occurred in the early church gatherings described by Paul could only have happened in small group settings. What Paul described could not have occurred logistically in a large meeting.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand all that Paul wrote within those four chapters of 1 Corinthians. However, it seems obvious that the most outstanding characteristic of the gatherings described in 1 Corinthians 11-14 was the Holy Spirit’s presence among them and His manifestation through members of the body. He gave gifts to individuals for the edification of the entire body.

Paul lists at least nine spiritual gifts: prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, discerning of spirits, gifts of healings, faith, and working of miracles. He does not state that all of these gifts were manifested at every gathering, but certainly implies the possibility of their operation and seems to summarize some of the more common manifestations of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 14:26:

What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Let’s consider all five of these common manifestations, and in a later chapter more thoroughly consider the nine gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.

First on the list is the psalm. Spirit-given psalms are mentioned by Paul in two of his other letters to churches, underscoring their place in Christian gatherings.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord (Eph. 5:18-19).

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col. 3:16).

The difference between psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is unclear, but the primary point is that all are based on Christ’s words, are Spirit-inspired, and should be sung by believers to teach and admonish one another. Certainly many of the hymns and choruses that believers have sung throughout church history would fall into one of those categories. Unfortunately, too many modern hymns and choruses lack biblical depth, indicating they were not Spirit-given, and because they are so shallow, have no real value to teach and admonish believers. Nevertheless, believers who gather in house churches should expect that the Spirit will not only inspire individual members to lead well-known Christian songs, old and new, but will also give special songs to some of the members that can be utilized for the common edification. Indeed, how special it is for churches to have their own Spirit-given songs!

Fourth, Paul listed two gifts that work together, tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In Corinth, there was an overabundance and abuse of speaking in tongues. Namely, people were speaking in tongues during the church gatherings and there was no interpretation, so no one knew what was being said. We might wonder how the Corinthians could be blamed, as it would seem the fault of the Holy Spirit for giving people the gift of tongues without giving anyone the gift of interpretation. There is a very satisfactory answer to that question which I will address in a later chapter. In any case, Paul did not forbid speaking in tongues (as do many institutional churches). Rather, he forbade the forbidding of speaking in tongues, and declared this was the Lord’s commandment (see 1 Cor. 14:37-39)!^[1] It was a gift that, when used properly, could edify the body and affirm God’s supernatural presence in their midst. It was God speaking through people, reminding them of His truth and His will.

Paul did make a strong case in chapter 14 for the superiority of prophecy over non-interpreted tongues-speaking. He strongly encouraged the Corinthians to desire to prophesy, and this indicates that gifts of the Spirit are more likely to be manifested among those who desire them. Similarly, Paul admonished the Thessalonian believers, “Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances” (1 Thes. 5:19). This indicates that believers can “quench” or “put out the fire of” the Spirit by harboring a wrong attitude towards the gift of prophecy. That is, no doubt, why the gift of prophecy is so rarely manifested among most believers today.

^[1] I am aware, of course, that there are those who relegate all supernatural manifestations of the Spirit to the first century, at which time they supposedly ceased. Thus, we have no reason to seek what the early church experienced, and speaking in tongues is no longer valid. I have little sympathy with such people who are like modern-day Sadducees. As one who has on several occasions praised God in Japanese according to Japanese speakers who heard me, and having never learned Japanese, I know these gifts have not ceased to be given by the Holy Spirit. I also wonder why these Sadducees maintain the Holy Spirit still calls, convicts and regenerates sinners, but deny the Spirit’s work beyond those miracles. This kind of “theology” is the product of human unbelief and disobedience, has no scriptural support, and actually works against Christ’s goal. It is direct disobedience to Christ according to what Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 14:37.

Could a pastor of a house church actually be more successful in God’s eyes than a pastor of a mega-church with a huge building and thousands in attendance every Sunday? Yes, if he is multiplying obedient disciples and disciple-makers, following Jesus’ model, as opposed to simply gathering goats once a week to watch a concert and listen to an entertaining speech sanctified by a few out-of-context scriptures.

A pastor who determines to follow the house church model will never have a large congregation of his own. In the long run, however, he will have much lasting fruit, as his disciples make disciples. Many pastors of “small” congregations of 40 or 50 people who are striving for more might need to adjust their thinking. Their churches might already be too large. Perhaps they should stop praying for a bigger building and start praying about who should be appointed to lead two new house churches. (Please, when that happens, don’t give your new denomination a name and yourself the title of “bishop”!)

We need to eradicate the thinking that bigger is better when it comes to church. If we were to judge purely on a biblical basis, single congregations consisting of hundreds of undiscipled spectators who meet in special buildings would be considered quite strange. If any of the original apostles visited modern institutional churches, they would be scratching their heads!