Does the Church Need to Grow?
An article in Christian Today discusses some recent comments by Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales where he says that the Anglican church is in serious danger of becoming irrelevant because its members cannot hold a civilized debate between themselves:
If the church of God can’t conduct a debate in a civilised way when it claims to be a reconciled and reconciling community - what message does that give to the world? We cannot as a church call for compassion, peace and justice in our nation and in our world if we as Christians do not exemplify those virtues in our own lives and in our dealings with one another.
However, the part of the article that I find especially interesting is at the end, where the Rev. David Philips, the general secretary of The Church Society, says the following in response to some suggestions from Archbishop Morgan about liberalizing attitudes towards homosexuality in the church:
If he thinks he’s right can he show us any church which is growing by giving this message? Those that are growing are those that are not giving compromising messages.
My question here is why are we so obsessed with the growth of the church? It is true that many mainline Protestant denominations have seen a decline in membership over the past few decades, and so it makes sense that people might be concerned with dropping numbers, but it has gotten to the point that church growth is seen as the sole issue that people feel is worth any kind of discussion (other than sex of course). However, if we really believe that the Church of God is eternal and made by God, it seems unlikely that it is simply going to disappear. Additionally, if we believe that we have some of the right ideas about the way in which the church should exist (not that I believe that any one church can fully encompass the true worship of God), then I do not think that we need to be overly concerned about how many people there are in our churches. God will still be praised and glorified regardless of whether there are 1,000 worshipers, 100 worshipers, or one worshiper. For me, it would make more sense to spend my time talking to people as individuals about the life-transforming message of Christianity in a deep and meaningful way rather than trying to take the quick way out and convert the masses with simple truths and easy answers.
