Church Growth

This weekend our church is scheduled to vote on whether or not to pursue a new building project. Over the past few years we are growing at a rapid pace and our current facility is not big enough for all the people coming. This is a great challenge to face and I am praying that we have wisdom in our response. I was speaking to a friend at the church about it and he said that God is bringing us new people and we have to have a place for them. He said we didn't ask to be a big church. He's absolutely right but we need to examine all our options and I am not completely sold on the idea that building a new church or even expanding our current place is the answer.

Before we build, I want our church to have vision for what kind of church we want to be. Simply because people are coming to our church, does that mean we want to be a big church? Is that our only response? I fear that by opposing a new building project I will be seen as being anti church growth. That is not my position. When we think of church growth we most often think of increasing the number of people in the church. What if we think of it in terms of increasing the number of churches in the area?

I recently spoke to another good friend of mine whose church is on the cutting edge of the church planting movement and I really think they are on to something. As they grow to a certain size, they take lay people from their congregation and plant new churches. Their church is growing but they are not faced with where to build but rather where to start a new church. Building new and bigger churches is a model which has worked in the past but today's church should consider a new paradigm of planting churches instead.

Now there are benefits to bigger churches. They typically have better facilities, more professional presentation and bigger budgets. However, most people in my generation, myself included, are looking for community and relationships and authenticity rather than presentation. Bigger churches have a more difficult time providing this sense of intimacy. Since we live in a corporate world and many church leaders like to apply corporate principles to the church, I'd like to use starbucks as an analogy. When you go to starbucks you go for the coffee, but more than that your go for atmosphere. Starbucks knows this and that is why they don't build huge coffee shops. Instead they build multiple smaller stores to meet the demand and maintain their identity. In fact in some cities you will see a starbucks on every corner. It would be cheaper and more efficient for them to build a super starbucks but that is not their mission. I propose the church should adopt the starbucks model.

By writing this, I do not mean to impugn or disparage big churches or the people in my church who support a new building project. There is room to disagree on how we proceed. I just want to point out that there is an alternate answer and share my vision for how we meet the challenges we are facing.