{"id":930,"date":"2009-11-09T09:30:29","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T14:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=930"},"modified":"2009-11-09T09:30:29","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T14:30:29","slug":"stop-trying-to-grow-your-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/stop-trying-to-grow-your-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Trying To Grow Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"\"I talk to more and more pastors these days asking the question, \u201cHow do I get my church to grow?\u201d\u00a0 They have conferences about how to grow your church and increase your attendance, how to be more effective and reach different people groups.\u00a0 The truth of the matter is, you cannot make your church grow<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right.\u00a0 I said it.\u00a0 Jesus said that He would build His church<\/strong>; he would grow it.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t include your particular organization if that\u2019s all your church is; your little club, or your group that you want to build so you can build buildings and fill them up, and talk at conferences, and write books about how to grow churches.\u00a0 That having been said, and assuming you\u2019re not that kind of person or you wouldn\u2019t be reading this blog, here\u2019s what you can <\/em>do.<\/p>\n

Instead of trying to make your church grow, or your organization, or anything else, let <\/em>it grow<\/strong>.\u00a0 Every living organism, church, movement, particularly the church of Jesus Christ, grows by the law of the farm, not the law of the factory.<\/p>\n

At most of the conferences I attend, speakers speak on the basis of the law of the factory.\u00a0 In other words, build a great assembly-line, fill it with product and great workers and out will come really great stuff. And if you want more of the great stuff, just increase the workers, do some re-aligning, and most of all increase the speed.\u00a0 Nothing could be further from the truth in growing something truly important and significant.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a pastor anywhere in America trying to make your church grow, stop it.\u00a0 Let<\/em> it grow, which means you\u2019ve got to have good seed.\u00a0 That\u2019s the gospel.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best kind.\u00a0 It is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes. The gospel works on its own.<\/strong> All we are to do is faithfully tell the redemptive story and be forces of reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve planted the seed, water it.\u00a0 Understand that you\u2019ll be planting it in different soils which means it\u2019s going to grow at different rates.\u00a0 So give it time.\u00a0 Water it.\u00a0 Fertilize it.\u00a0 Create a healthy environment.\u00a0 Give it some time and it will grow on God\u2019s timing, not yours.<\/p>\n

There is nothing you can do to hurry up the growth of the spiritual organization. <\/strong> Yes, it is true you can slow it down and you can impede it altogether.\u00a0 But your job is to take away the impediments to growth: the boundaries, the walls, things that arise to keep the church from growing spontaneously as a move of God.<\/p>\n

So here is my advice.\u00a0 Love people, plant the seed of the gospel, water it, wait, and let God grow the church<\/strong>.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be happier and the result will be a lot healthier in the long term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I talk to more and more pastors these days asking the question, \u201cHow do I get my church to grow?\u201d\u00a0 They have conferences about how to grow your church and increase your attendance, how to be more effective and reach different people groups.\u00a0 The truth of the matter is, you cannot make your church grow. … Continue reading “Stop Trying To Grow Your Church”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}