Church Growth V Kingdom Growth

Picture taken from unsplash.com credit Stanislav Kondratiev

I have been having the same conversation recently with a lot of people it seems. The conversation goes something like this:

Q: How are you getting on?

A: Yeah not too bad thanks, we are seeing some growth and the church is numerically as strong as it has been for a little while.

OP: Wow that's great.

All that I said in answer to this question is true in Dumfries Free Church we seeing some growth, we are numerically stronger than we have been for a few years now. All of this is good but the thing that really nags away at me, the thing which frustrates me is that we are seeing congregational growth but are we seeing kingdom growth?

What do I mean by that? Our congregation is growing numerically but is the kingdom of God growing numerically? Are people being brought from darkness to light or are Christians coming to our church because they like it? Or more realistically are people coming to our church because they were dissatisfied somewhere else.

Before you get on to my theology I know the kingdom grows in more ways than just people coming to faith, I know that people can grow in their faith and I have no doubt that some of the people who come are growing. Sometimes however I fear that we hide behind this as an excuse for poor evangelism, or a poor mission strategy, we comfort ourselves with the thought, well the church is growing it just isn't growing numerically.

Yet what is the point in shuffling the deckchairs on a sinking Titanic? What is the point in shuffling the Christians around churches in Dumfries when 96% of the population don't go to a church of any stripe at all.

I love seeing our church grow, I love seeing people come in and find a home amongst us, I love seeing new people being integrated and serving within the fellowship, but what I long to see is people being made new with the gospel, is people being transformed by the grace of God and His son Jesus Christ.

I love seeing church growth but I also love seeing Kingdom growth, seeing the kingdom of darkness rolled back and the kingdom of light expanding. Lets strive for both because as the kingdom grows the church grows.