Unwrapping the Bad Rap - Preaching.com

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Unwrapping the Bad Rap

By Will Mancini

An idol is anything we add to Jesus in order to make life work. The irony is that in the call to preach the gospel many ministers fail to apply the gospel personally in ways that free their heart from a performance trap. This performance, of course, is measured most easily by church attendance; so the temptation to compare is always as close as our heartbeat. For some, the competition nurtured through sports fanaticism or market indicators magnifies the intensity of having to grow. When it’s time to attend a pastor’s gathering, deep emotions are connected to how the church is doing. If it’s growing, we can’t wait to find subtle ways to tell our ministry colleagues. If it’s not, we hope no one asks (or we just don’t attend the group). One of my closest friends in ministry confessed to me that the worst year of his life was the first year his church did not grow. Addicted to a track record of 15 percent growth over 10 years, he saw the first year of attendance plateau, hitting him like the black plague.

Show Me the Bigger Box!
The result of growth idolatry is the default vision of the "bigger box" church. The ever-present vision for campus expansion and larger buildings is the epitome of the attractional model. Are there other ways to expand the kingdom? Yes, but growth idolatry strongly persuades us that kingdom growth must mean numerical growth of our local church. So I ask, who really wanted the bigger box: the church growth principle? the people in the church? the pastor? As Larry Osborne of North Coast Church always says, "People like it small, but leaders like it big." Thus we return to Bottger’s ironic dilemma of being imprisoned because of his own success. The problem in applying some good methods to grow is that they work. When they do, we open a door to the possibility of becoming a slave to the growth in attendance at our church. Howard Hendricks understood this when he exhorted us as young pastors, "I am not fearful for your failure; I am fearful for your success."

I see growth idolatry reflected most often in three scenarios. The first is when churches exhibit little financial generosity outside of their local ministry. One pastor I know has a vision of planting thousands of churches in his lifetime. But with each year of success and more resources to invest in planting, the mother church seems to grow ever stingier. The second is when churches get their bigger building but don’t know what to do next. I did a funeral with a pastor in St. Louis years ago. As we drove from the gravesite, he confessed that after moving into their $10 million facility, he was completely at a loss when it came to the church’s vision. Instead of discovering his Church Unique and clarifying a new vision, growth idolatry had demanded the bigger box. The third scenario is rapid expansion of the multisite movement. Although multisite is a strategic option for many, it can serve the growth idolatry of some who would be better off planting churches than leveraging one teacher across other local venues.

A poignant statement in the vein of growth idolatry was made by Gordon MacDonald. He posed the issue years ago at Willow Creek Summit in this way: "I have wondered if our evangelical fervor to change the world is not driven in some part by the inability to change ourselves." Pointing the drive of more impact back to the brokenness within, God used his question to help me see my own idolatry that day. Reggie McNeal offers another reflection on the same problem. "Unfortunately it [the church growth movement] fell victim to an idolatry as old as the Tower of Babel, the belief that we are the architects of the work of God. As a result we have the best churches men can build, but are still waiting for the church that only God can get the credit for."

1. Guder, Darrell, and Barrett, Lois. The Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998, p. 3.