Nothing would make me happier than if increasing numbers of people lived the life of prayer, simplicity, compassion, justice, non-violence, humility, and thanksgiving that Jesus teaches. Indeed, nothing is more important than that people actually follow Jesus, in their lifestyle and actions. The future of the planet literally depends on it. It is a matter of existential urgency.
Therefore, I do want churches to grow in numbers. Numerical growth in the church is authentic when it is a by-product of people becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. For what is a church, a gospel community, than a gathering of people seeking to follow Jesus? Growth is not a necessary by-product, it doesn’t happen automatically. But it is something that can happen as a result of the church’s faithful discipleship.
Sadly, it might be very difficult for disciple-making churches to grow. In a particularly difficult context, people may avoid the church and be deaf to its message. Often this is because Christianity has such a bad, but unfortunately often deserved, reputation among many people as a religion of judgment, condemnation, hypocrisy, and self-righteousness. It has been historically the religion of colonizers and conquerors, of cruelty and exclusion. Even today, in the minds of many, churches are associated with the politics of racism, privilege, and self-serving lies.
And sometimes people are conditioned by society to imagine that discipleship is pointless. Especially in a capitalist economy which has managed to sell sins — like greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and vanity — as virtues, and define success purely in terms of money, discipleship looks insane or subversive. People may realize that discipleship is difficult, costly, and necessarily demands that they change. Who does that?
At the same time, too many main-line Christians react to the recent half-century of church membership collapse by rather sanctimoniously congratulating themselves for refusing to sink to giving people “easy answers” or “slick productions.” As if it were somehow more spiritually demanding and authentic to stick to traditional (if not moribund) worship forms and a heady (if not elitist) theology. This would make some sense were they proficient at actually making disciples, which they’re not. At best they make charitable donations and compose grandiose, even radical, statements. Neither of these approaches change much of anything. Discipleship is about solidarity, not charity, and action, not just talk.
And, conversely, the fact that a church is growing numerically does not necessarily mean disciples are being made there. Churches that tell people only what they want to hear, appealing to their egocentricity and desires, or stoking their fear and anger, even their hatred, shame, and bigotry, or gives them easy comfort or an entertaining show, may, and often do, grow numerically. Growth based on these factors is not an indication of discipleship. It just means they figured out how to manipulate the market. Jesus doesn’t have anything good to say about markets. In short, it doesn’t matter how fast a church grows if it preaches white supremacy, homophobia, nationalism or other things which are antithetical to Jesus’ radically inclusive teachings.
Jesus doesn’t say, “get people to become members of my religious institution by any means necessary.” He says “Go and make disciples of all nations teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” On the one hand, we make disciples by being disciples ourselves. We need to be living examples and models of discipleship. On the other hand, discipleship means making disciples. We can’t claim to be following Jesus if we aren’t putting our energy into attracting and inviting others into the life of discipleship. How are we doing that? How are we a light to the world? How are we salt or leaven permeating society and influencing those around us?
I suspect that if we took discipleship seriously we would not care that much about numbers… and then maybe our numbers would actually start to increase.
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