Church Growth vs. Kingdom Growth: The Difference is Evangelism

"Our church is getting larger, so we must be OK, right?" Not necessarily!

What is Church Growth?
Church Growth can be judged by simply counting heads. "How many people were attending last year as opposed to now?" Numbers, however, can be deceiving. Simply counting heads or bodies does not tell you anything at all about the spiritual growth of the people in a congregation. Counting heads also does not indicate whether or not the individuals in your church are new converts or if they simply transferred their membership from another church or denomination.

What is Kingdom Growth?"
Kingdom Growth is our true goal. When new souls are added to the Kingdom of God through evangelism efforts, the angels rejoice. Luke 15:10

Our goal as Christians, doing the work of an evangelist, is to lead lost souls into a relationship with Jesus Christ. True growth is only accomplished by winning souls!!

In trying to help churches develop effective outreach and evangelism ministries over the years, I have come to understand that many growing churches have fallen into the trap of being comfortable and satisfied with numerical growth. This is a dangerous trend that can easily lull the Christian church into a false sense of security, leading to a community that develops a social services mindset instead of an evangelistic outlook.

I have watched with interest over the past decade, as churches are started in local elementary schools and other public buildings in the suburban areas of our cities. Many of these churches experience rapid growth. I have watched as some have grown from 20 members to a church of several thousand, in just a few short years.

A large portion of this remarkable church growth can be attributed to the fact that the population is shifting from inner city areas to the suburbs. People are finding churches more convenient to their new location, so of course, these churches will grow quickly. This growth pattern has caused much excitement. Other churches have tried to duplicate the growth by copying the methods used by these new, upwardly mobile churches.

Make no mistake, at some level there are new souls being added to the Kingdom by these efforts. But for the most part, from my own observations and questioning, the majority of the growth is due to transference. We're moving existing Kingdom residents from one location to another and calling it Church Growth.

Reprinted from Effective Evangelism Training by Rev. Teddy Levron.