Jonah the Super-prophet?

Yesterday I sat through the first lecture in my "Principles of Church Growth" class. A good chunk of the class (and of many books that focus on the same subject matter) was dedicated to convincing us that it is not shallow or carnal to look at numerical church growth as the primary indicator of a healthy church. In other words, all healthy churches should grow dramatically (with very few exceptions) . . . the only churches that should remain "small" (150 +/-50 seems to be the definition of "small" used in this class) are those in small communities, and pastors of slowly-growing or small churches need to repent and change their ways. I remain unconvinced.

Let's just look at the Old Testament prophets for a minute, shall we? Now, I realize that there are differences between the ministries of the OT prophets and churches, but that certainly doesn't mean that we cannot learn from them about God's character and those he chooses to be his ministers. By the standards of the people holding the above philosophy of church growth, God's pre-exhilic prophets were dismal failures. For hundreds of years these men had ministries that called on Israel and Judah to repent or face expulsion from the land. Apparenty they didn't make too much of a lasting impression because God was forced to follow through on the threatened punishment: in 720 BC the Northern Kingdom was captured and most of its people deported by the Assyrians and in 586 BC Babylon did the same thing to the Southern Kingdom (those dates are from memory so they may or may not be exactly right).

Did the pre-exhilic prophets fail God? NO! They did exactly what God told them to do. They faithfully proclaimed God's message to a people who did not want to listen and did not respond, yet we can be challenged and blessed today by reading their words which became a part of Scripture! Everyone loves Isaiah chapter 6 where God commissions Isaiah, but they tend to stop after verse 8 with Isaiah's dramatic declaration of "Here am I. Send me." For the rest of the chapter God basically tells him that Israel is going to be judged anyway . . . hardly anyone will repent and there will be punishment. It was God's plan that Isaiah not see massive numbers of conversions, and apparently the same goes for the other pre-exhilic prophets. The writing prophets who was the biggest "success" in terms of numbers was Jonah. Now, I think there's something wrong with an approach that would glorify the most spiritually flawed prophet and declare the likes of Isaiah and Jeremiah to be failures.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that churches with small numbers are inherantly more holy or that large growing churches are necessarily unhealthy compromisers. What I am saying is that numbers, one way or the other, are NOT necessarily a good indicator of how healthy a church is or how well its pastor is performing his ministry. I would go so far as to say that a strategy geared primarily toward increasing numbers very well may be shallow and carnal.

No church in the New Testamen is condemned for not growing or being sufficiently large. Churches are reprimanded for other things, including: allowing members to live in open sin (I Cor. 5), creating factions within the local church (I Cor. 1:10-17), disrespecting the Lord's Supper (I Cor. 11:17ff), speaking in tongues without interpreters present (I Cor 14), forsaking their first love (Rev. 2:4-5), allowing people to teach things contrary to Scripture (Rev. 2:15), allowing members to lead others into sin (Rev. 2:20-23), spiritual deadness despite good deeds (Rev. 3:1-3), and spiritual apathy (Rev. 3:15-19). Any of these things (or other spiritual problems) could very well result in a lack of church growth, but that is not the same as saying that a lack of church growth indicates that there is some spiritual problem . . . or that phenomenal church growth indicates spiritual health.

Some churches use all the latest business techniques and/or a watered down "gospel" and see human-generated numerical growth without true disciple-making. Other churches God blesses with phenomenal growth as they faithfully share the gospel in ways that people can understand and seek to help Believers mature in their faith.

Some churches are so inward focused that they slowly shrivel up and die through lack of outreach or outreach with language and programs that are stuck back in the 50's (or earlier). Other churches God blesses with few visible results even as they faithfully share the Gospel in ways that people can understand and seek to help Believers mature in their faith.

That God calls some churches and idividuals to be primarily a steady witness in a resistant community is no excuse for shoddy ministry. We must faithfully plant and water, but remember that it is God who gives the increase!