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- Can Your Church Grow AND Make Disciples?
Well, first off…happy Memorial Day and thank you to all the veterans that gave their life to defend our freedoms.
My grandfather proudly served in the Pacific during WW2 and I’m incredibly proud to be part of His legacy!
As I sit here today with a little free time I want to unpack a tension…
Between church growth and discipleship.
Lately I’ve been reading everything related to church planting, multiplication, and disciple making that I can get my hands on…
Because God has given us a vision not just to grow “up” but also “out” as a church…
Practically we're believing that God will use our church to plant a church in all 50 states in the USA that each plant 10 in that state in the next decade.
We call it the “50X10” vision.
So I’ve been voraciously researching on the best way to catalyze a multiplying movement…
And in my studies I’ve come across a distinct “us” and “them” mentality when it comes to multiplication and church growth…
The primary tension lies between the idea of using marketing, Big Days, and modern launch tactics to grow the church vs the more organic strategies practiced by the church planting community…
Such as, bi-vocational pastors, house church, organic one on one evangelism and discipleship.
Some of the books I’ve read about church planting are kinda down on the idea of using marketing…
And I get it…
Because we’re not called to reach other Christians…
We’re called to reach the lost!
But as a church planter and a coach that helps churches grow (with the purpose of multiplying in mind) I see a false dichotomy.
Between church growth and multiplication.
I think the proper way to view this is both/and…
Churches that grow and multiply.
In a lot of the church planting literature the cry is to “go back to the New Testament model!” and ignore the modern methods of social media, advertising, etc.
But here’s my pushback…
Why don’t we leverage the best of both eras?
Because I don’t doubt for a minute that the Apostle Paul would use every form of technology and media available to further expand the kingdom!
If Paul could have a weekly ZOOM call with Timothy, Titus, Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos don’t you think he would have?
If he could spend $100 on a META ad and reach the entire city of Ephesus with a gospel message and an invite wouldn’t he?
If Paul knew about the power of YouTube content that allows a message to be recorded once and viewed again and again to coach/teach/encourage wouldn’t he use it?
I could go on and on…
But I’ll finish with this thought…
Modern tactics can’t and shouldn’t replace NT relational church planting and disciple making strategies.
We need to reawaken the body of Christ to a fresh expression of making disciples.
We need Christians that have a heart for their neighborhood and personally share Christ with people…
And open their homes for groups and churches…
But we shouldn’t eschew the use of modern technology to reach more people and grow the church.
It’s not either/or, it’s both/and.
Want more thoughts and strategies for growth and disciple making?
Talk soon,
Pastor Jake
PS - What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to let me know! Just hit reply.