It's about faithfulness

Jared Wilson deplores the emphasis on numerical growth at the expense of discipleship, worship, evangelism and service:

The megachurches are growing, but the Church is not. Isn't that telling us something? Doesn't that say that all this emphasis on getting big isn't working? It's sucking in consumerist Christians happy with our bells and whistles, but our discipleship is failing, our evangelism is failing, our savoring the supremacy of Christ is failing, our loving our neighbors is failing, our exalting the God of the Universe is failing, not because those things are failures but because we aren't doing those things.

I love Acts 2. I'm not gonna trot out the "It's descriptive, not prescriptive" card, but I will at least mention that a lot of the leaders clinging to "And God added to their number daily" are subtracting the entire rest of the book where the apostles were boldly preaching the gospel, commanding shared-life community, and explicitly exalting the glory of God. They didn't put on a seeker service. ....

Is this jealousy? Am I anti- big churches? Nope. There are just as many, if not more, big churches where the gospel is preached and the community is being discipled and is loving their neighbors as there are small churches that suck on all the things that matter.

And that's my point. It's not about numbers. It's about faithfulness. It's about pastors pastoring and the whole community worshiping. It's about health. It's about following Jesus. It's about trusting God.

Whether you're a tall, grande, or venti church, if your overriding concern is numbers, you're an idolatrous church. [more]

The Gospel-Driven Church: Numerolatry and the Church