GOD'S BLESSING AND THE NONGROWING CHURCH

There’s a pastor I know across town. His church is not growing, so he envies me. I know that because he told me.

I know this man well, and I’d say he’s more godly than I am. He prays more, studies harder, and preaches more enthusiastically. He visits more, counsels more, and even makes evangelistic cold calls. Yet I make three times as much money, get invited to speak at other churches, and enjoy the highest ecclesiastical accolade of this age: “He pastors a growing church.”

Please don’t give me the managerial platitudes that say I must work smarter while he works harder. Honestly, in every way that counts before God, I believe he’s a better man than I.

So I would like to propose a toast-er, a blessing: “God bless the pastor of the nongrowing church.” He may be much more like the Lord Jesus than I am.

Some folks may not like that statement. They’ll argue that it’s God’s will for each church to grow, and I agree. They’ll argue that growth should be numerical, the fruit of evangelism, and I agree.

Yet that is not the way it was much of the time in our Lord’s ministry. He wasn’t always (maybe not even usually) “the pastor of a growing church.” When the crowds did flock to him, it was sometimes (maybe usually) for the wrong reasons (for example, in John 6:26, where it was for food). And when he got down to real business, they were quick to disappear John 6:66). An attendance chart of Christ’s ministry might have revealed statistical decline over time.

Was he discouraged? Possibly. Did he quit? Not until death. Was he a failure? Absolutely not!

Nor was Paul a failure when all abandoned him and his churches shrank while cults and false apostles mushroomed. The total fruit of Paul’s ministry may not have equaled the numbers in my medium-sized church.

We are all aware that it isn’t just good churches that grow. Cults grow, too. Of course, we assume the Holy Spirit and proper techniques produce our growth while false promises lead to cultic growth. However, the corollary of that assumption is that it’s justice when they decline but failure when we do. The failure of a church to grow is thus taken as an indictment of the pastor, evidence of spiritual rejection, a reason to quit.

So let me say it again: “May God bless the pastor of the nongrowing church”-the kind of faithful, diligent servant who sticks to his post with no accolades; the one who is never asked to speak at Founders’ Day, whose name never appears in his seminary’s brag rag, whose statistics never raise the eyebrows of denominational leaders; the person who writes but is never published, who will move but never be promoted; the minister with the resilient spirit who keeps plugging away for the Lord.

I envy that kind of faithful spirit, and I honor it. I am already wondering if I’ll feel like a failure as soon as my church plateaus. I’m defensively praying that God will still bless me then, and that my church will, too.

Johnny V. Miller

Cypress Bible Church

Cypress, Texas