I hear a lot of discussions about how churches grow and why they decline. I hear about great, foolproof strategies for church growth––“just do what we’re doing!” I hear lots of reasons for church decline: we’re not relevant enough or exciting enough or ________ enough.

I don’t have any great new strategies to share here. And I doubt anything below is what people are expecting when they call for more relevance and excitement. Nevertheless, here’s my modest proposal about how the church grows (in two parts—the first part this week).

Prayer

I should really begin this by saying that God makes the church grow. The apostle Paul said as much about one of the earliest churches: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”[1. 1 Corinthians 3:6] This is God’s church, and he makes it grow. If we ever forget that, we’ve lost the plot.

A few lines later in that letter, Paul explains his role, and I think ours: “For we are co-workers in God’s service.”[1. 1 Corinthians 3:9] The amazing thing about God’s work is that it’s his work, and yet he invites us to join him in it. God makes the church grow, but we don’t sit idly by. It’s a cooperative relationship.

Look at one of the most interesting ways Jesus describes that cooperative relationship: “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”[1. Luke 11:9] When we pray, God hears and answers. I’m convinced of that.

Sometimes that comes in ways we would expect, sometimes in ways very different. One of the letters in the Bible says, “You do not have because you do not ask God.”[1. James 4:2] I would be scared to know how true that has been in my life.

Let me urge all of us, then, to pray. Pray for Lexington and the areas around it, that God would soften people’s hearts and make them open to the message of the gospel. Pray the same for your friends and relatives and coworkers and neighbors. And pray for First UMC, for Offerings, and for our leaders––that we’ll know God is present with us, that we’ll be wise and godly in all of our decisions, that all of us will be growing more and more into the image of God.

Presence

The church grows because of our presence. Each one of us is a vital part of this body of Christ. We form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.[1. Romans 12:5] Your presence makes a difference in the life of the body, and your absence is felt.

The church grows because of our presence in a few ways.

First, we grow as a community because we put ourselves in a place to grow as individuals. As they say, showing up is half the battle. Let me admit—sometimes I haven’t wanted to show up for worship or my catechesis group. Some of those times, I actually made up an excuse and stayed home. But several of the times when I went, even though I didn’t care to be there, something important happened, something that wouldn’t have happened if I had stayed home and watched TV or surfed the Internet.

Second, the church grows because of our presence in a pretty straightforward way… A lot of the declines in worship attendance today aren’t because less people attend worship, but because people attend worship less. What was once a weekly priority has become, for many people, a weekly option.

We show up for worship when we feel like it, when our weekend hasn’t been too busy, when we don’t have other plans or other things we need to do. That lower worship attendance affects us as a community—not just on an attendance sheet. It affects us because we have fewer voices there singing together, fewer smiling faces there to welcome each other and guests, fewer people there to hear our prayer requests and pray with us.

So let me urge all of us to make presence a priority. Specifically, to make a weekly priority for our worship services and a catechesis group. When you take the weekly time for those two things, I believe it puts you in places where God’s work begins to transform you as a person and places where you contribute something important to the life of the church body.

Gifts

The church grows because of our gifts. I’m going to talk specifically about our financial gifts, because I’ll talk about other kinds of gifts next week.

Some churches are slow to talk about money. It feels uncomfortable. In other churches, I hear people say it seems all they ever hear about is money.

The simple truth is that money has always been an important part of the spread of the gospel. Jesus and the disciples had financial support from a group of women,[1. Luke 8:1-3] the apostle Paul made some of his trips using support from other churches,[1. 2 Corinthians 11:8] and since its beginning, the church has used collections to take care of people in need.

One of the things that makes me so proud of First UMC is how we’ve chosen to allocate our money. Regardless of how much or little we receive, we’ve chosen to dedicate 10% of it toward missions outreach and another 15% to the larger work of the United Methodist Church, which includes some important mission work both in Kentucky and around the world. With the remaining 75%, I’m proud of our leaders’ diligence, asking how we can live simply as a community and keep giving generously. They really are trying to be faithful with everything we receive.

With that, let me urge all of us to consider our giving and give generously. The church across the globe grows as we invest the money people need to support current works and to start new works. I believe First UMC and Offerings will continue to grow as we have more money to start more new worshiping communities, to afford new worship locations, and to hire important staff positions. As a church and as individuals, we need to be faithful with the money God gives us. It’s an important part––an essential part––of the church’s growth.

[See Part II here]
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Several weeks ago, Carey Nieuwhof wrote a piece titled “Why we need more entrepreneurial church leaders, not more shepherds.”

Though Nieuwhof presents this as if he’s a minority voice seeking a hearing, I see the same mentality and the same proposed solutions everywhere I look. What does the church need? New ideas! Bigger vision! Charismatic leaders!

If Nieuwhof were really such a minority voice, I wouldn’t bother to write this. But I see his call for dynamic entrepreneurs becoming the norm.

You’d think I would have been amening right along with the piece. I fashion myself a bit of an entrepreneur. I fit Nieuwhof’s standards, at least––I’ve done some experimentation in the church and business world, and if you’ve read this blog long, you know I have a restless discontent with the status quo.

But I think Nieuwhof is wrong. I think he (a) misunderstands the role he characterizes as “shepherd,” (b) misrepresents the church’s past, and (c) misdiagnoses the church’s current problems.

To be clear, I think the church could use more “entrepreneurs” (though I think that’s a terrible term to choose). But I think we could use more shepherds, too. And if forced to choose––though I’d rather not––I think we should be focused on adding more “shepherd” leaders.

What’s a shepherd?

Nieuwhof describes shepherds and apostles this way:

A shepherd cares for a (usually) small group. An apostle launches dozens, hundreds or thousands of new communities of Christ-followers.

The church today is flooded with leaders who fit the shepherd model, caring for people who are already assembled, managing what’s been built and helping to meet people’s needs.

According to this, a shepherd takes care of a few people. (S)he meets their needs, manages what’s been built, preserves status quo.

That’s a tragic under-representation of the pastoral task––a focus on preserving the status quo in a few people’s lives. Is this what Jesus meant by calling himself the good shepherd? Is that all he was after when he said to Peter, “Take care of my sheep” and “Feed my sheep”? Surely not!

Let’s compare the role of a shepherd to that of a parent. The parents’ role is to meet the basic needs of their children––food, shelter, clothing––right? Well, that’s part of the role. But if that’s all you’re doing, you’re not going to win any awards.

Good parents don’t just provide. They cultivate and develop. They help their children grow into full-functioning adults––people who will contribute something good to the world. Though we’re charged with only a few, it may be the most important task of our lives. Good shepherding is the same. It aims to develop a next generation stronger than the last.

If we describe shepherds as managers of the status quo––supplying the basic needs of a few people––we’re describing some low-level shepherds.

Shepherds and apostles in the church’s history

Nieuwhof asks, “[W]ould you ever have heard about Jesus if a rabbi named Saul hadn’t sailed all over the known world telling every Jewish and non-Jewish person he could find about Jesus, planting churches almost everywhere he went?”

First––I think I would have.

I don’t want to discount the incredible apostolic work of Paul. I don’t need to defend his importance to the early Christian movement (see, the Book of Acts). But I don’t think the gospel spread solely, or even primarily, by Paul’s work.

How did it primarily spread? I think Rodney Stark’s researched observation is better: “Mostly, the church spread as ordinary people accepted it and then shared it with their families and friends, and the faith was carried from one community to another in this same way—probably most often by regular travelers such as merchants.”[1. The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion (p. 69)] Generally, he observes, “the spread of religious movements is not accomplished by dramatic events and persuasive preachers, but by ordinary followers who convert their equally anonymous friends, relatives, and neighbors.”[1. Ibid., p. 70]

It’s hard to make heroes out of ordinary, anonymous people in history. As a result, we focus on the extraordinary, known people. But that can make us forget that lots of ordinary people have driven a lot of the extraordinary movements of history.

Methodists have done the same. We revere the old circuit riders who transformed the American religious landscape, but Donald Haynes notes that the local elders and class leaders were “the pillars and backbone of local churches.”[1. “Wesleyan Wisdom: GC 2008: Outsource Study on Itineracy,” United Methodist Reporter (April 2008)] The circuit riders helped start new communities in places where there were none, but those communities survived, grew, and strengthened thanks to all those anonymous local shepherds.

Second––I find it interesting that Nieuwhof uses Saul/Paul as his guiding example.

Why should we prioritize “spiritual entrepreneurs”? Because Paul, the greatest Christian leader ever, was an apostle.

What if we asked a different question, though? “Would you ever have heard about Jesus if a rabbi named Jesus hadn’t gathered a small group of disciples, cared for them, fed them, and developed them into the people who would lead the earliest Church?”

The work of rigorously preparing a few preceded the work of sending them out. That leads to the final point.

The church’s current problems

Nieuwhof diagnoses our problem as a lack of innovation. We need more big, bold, risk-taking. We need business leaders who can cast big visions and dream big dreams. That’s what’s missing.

First––really? That’s missing?

Haven’t our churches been crafting “vision statements” since the ’80s? Innovating new structures (multi-site, satellite, online “churches”), new ways to take the gospel to the streets, new worship styles?

Maybe I’m seeing an odd segment, but I see lots of new things being tried. And then the things that work being marketed as the answer to the church’s problems (see, e.g., Willow Creek conferences). And then the innovators of those great new methods lamenting that they had generated big crowds but developed very few mature disciples (see, again, Willow Creek).

Second––what’s really missing?

Why is the church in decline? Is it really because of a lack of new, entrepreneurial energy? Are we losing more people in each generation because we haven’t started something new and exciting?

I think the better answer goes back to what a prominent Christian theologian, leader, and adamant advocate for church planting said to me recently: “What a lot of us are saying in our private discussions is that we don’t need more Christians.”

Why would anyone say that?

My summary of that leader’s position: Essentially, we have a large number of professing Christians, but very few disciples, few leaders, few who see themselves as pastors, or have any expectation of becoming pastors. [I’ve written about this at length in “The Christian Bubble.”]

How has this happened? Over the past 200 years, the church in America has actually done a lot of apostolic work––”entrepreneurial” work, if you must. We have a large number of professing Christians. Our “base” is pretty wide, but it’s also pretty shallow.

Why? We don’t have enough good shepherds, helping believers become disciples and helping disciples become apostles. Nieuwhof says “the church today is flooded with leaders who fit the shepherd model.” I think he’s wrong. Or if they fit the model, they’re not doing the work.

Nieuwhof is looking for his next spiritual entrepreneurs from the business ranks. Where did the early church find its apostles? The disciples became apostles!

Why isn’t he looking for apostles from our discipleship pipelines? Probably because we don’t have many strong discipleship pipelines.

Connecting the dots: why don’t we have more apostles? Because we don’t have enough disciples. Why don’t we have more disciples? Because we don’t have enough good shepherds doing the hard work of discipleship.

Conclusion: More apostles and more shepherds

If you know me, you know I celebrate church planting, apostolic leadership, bold new ideas. Let’s have more apostles!

But frankly, I believe those are addressing secondary concerns. The American church’s primary concern is that we have lots of believers but few disciples. We need to do the hard work of discipleship––caring for small groups of disciples so that they can become the next pastors and apostles in the church.

We need more shepherds! Lots more shepherds! And if I have to choose the leader of my church, I’ll choose a shepherd who will do the hard work of discipleship for a small group of leaders who can be apostles and shepherds in the community.

Entrepreneurial work is big and flashy and exciting. I understand the appeal. All those anonymous shepherds throughout Christian history don’t get much attention or credit. But they’re the pillars and the backbone. Let’s quit assuming we don’t need more of them. We don’t have nearly enough.

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I just came across Albert Mohler’s interview of Stanley Hauerwas, who may become regarded as the most important theologian of our generation. I would love for you to read the whole interview transcript [sadly riddled with typos, but still worth reading].

Hauerwas is deep and brilliant, and you’ll get a nice sample of his whole project in this interview. Mohler’s questions are helpful, and his critiques of Hauerwas are gracious and fair. I have frequent and profound disagreements with Mohler, so I was surprised to see his open engagement with Hauerwas’s work.

That interview is long and at times academic. So I’ll point you to John Meunier’s brief reflection on it (which is how I found the interview in the first place). Meunier’s reflection is honest and pastoral. Here, as usual, I find myself in agreement with him.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler

You’ve probably heard the line before: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”[1. Often attributed to Albert Einstein, but unverified. It’s, at the least, a pretty good definition of Occam’s Razor.] You may have seen people violate this in one of the areas you really know––politics, social issues, relationship dynamics… Our public versions are often simplistic and naive. They leave out all the complexity of the real situation. We try to simplify issues to make them easier to understand, but we often go too far.

I think Hauerwas’s critique of American evangelicalism may fit here. We’ve tried to define Christian faith and salvation as simply as possible, but we’ve gone too far (and if forced to choose, in the wrong direction). We’ve become simplistic and disregarded important nuances in the Christian faith. We’ve said yes/no when we should have said both/and.

When we’ve asked and answered––”Which faith saves? The faith of the individual or the faith of the church?”––I think Hauerwas might say that we’ve already made things simpler than we should.

Several of my articles are probably unwittingly influenced by Hauerwas and those who’ve echoed him. “Absent from flesh” and “Reaching out without watering down” are two recent examples. If those hit on something you’d like to hear more about, I recommend Hauerwas to you. If you didn’t understand what in the world I was doing in those, Hauerwas’s work at least explains me a bit more.

A few highlights

From Hauerwas:

[O]ne of the great problems of Evangelical life in America is evangelicals think they have a relationship with God that they go to church to have expressed but church is a secondary phenomenon to their personal relationship and I think that’s to get it exactly backwards: that the Christian faith is meditated faith [sic –– I think this should be “mediated faith”]. It only comes through the witness of others as embodied in the church. So I should never trust my presumption that I know what my relationship with God is separate from how that is expressed through words and sacrament in the church.

[T]here’s much to be said for Christianity as repetition and I think evangelicalism doesn’t have enough repetition in a way that will form Christians to survive in a world that constantly tempts us to always think we have to do something new.

[O]ne of the things I would have us to go [sic] is a much richer, liturgical life than I think is the case in many evangelical and Protestant mainstream churches. I think a recovery of the centrality of Eucharistic celebration and why it is so central is just crucial for the future of the church.

[R]emember one of the things that is so impressive about the Church Catholic is that it is the church of the poor. We Americans cannot imagine being a church of the poor; we can imagine being a church that cares about the poor but we cannot imagine the poor being Christians but Catholicism has done that in a way that is interestingly enough a very deep critique of empire.

From Meunier:

I think if forced to side, I’d have to say the participation in the body is primary [over personal relationship with Jesus] because it is the way by which we come to know who Jesus is and what it means to be one of his followers. The Holy Spirit works through means of grace that are in the stewardship of the church.

But then my “both/and” emerges because I also believe that Christianity is not something you get by osmosis. It is not a T-shirt you by [sic] at the gift shop. It is something that changes you. It is personal. And if it is not personal, it is ultimately incomplete.

If you find those highlights interesting, take the time to read the full pieces. The original interview here. John Meunier’s reflection here.

UPDATE: John Meunier has just posted a second reflection, focused on Hauerwas’s treatments of conversion, gospel, and forgiveness. Once again, I think I can say I’m in full agreement with John. He says here what I would say if I were more articulate and had more time to spell out my own thoughts

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