How can our church grow? What’s the key? What do we need to do to grow our church? Well, first let’s define what we mean by church growth. Actually, what we don’t mean. Church growth is not recruiting Christians from other churches. If we take 25 people from Cherry Hills, our church has not grown. We’ve gained nothing for the Kingdom. Church growth is reaching the lost. As Jesus said, “making disciples” from those who were not.

Now that we’re on the same page, what is the key to reaching the lost? Some would say it’s making our worship services more attractive to unbelievers. To this I ask, what about church is attractive to the unchurched? Worship is only meaningful to worshipers. The reason unbelievers don’t go to church is not that they haven’t found an attractive enough worship service to attend. There are over 170 churches in Springfield, alone. There are churches of every size, shape, style, and color. There is traditional worship, contemporary worship, progressive worship, ancient-modern worship, even jazz worship. Some churches have choirs, some have paid, professional bands. For the unchurched in Springfield, there is more than enough to choose from. It’s not due to a lack of options, they don’t go to worship because they’re not worshipers.

You might ask, “What about the mega-churches with their rock bands?” What about them? Willow Creek Community Church didn’t grow because their worship service was attractive. Bill Hybels will be the first to tell you they grew because their members built personal relationships in small group settings with the unsaved people in their community. Rick Warren’s church grew the same way. So did all mega-churches who are creating disciples, not just converts who feel good about themselves. Creating a worship service that is attractive to non-worshipers is a contradiction of terms.

Before moving on, I’ve raised another question. If cool worship isn’t attractive to non-worshipers, why have contemporary worship? Well, if your main goal with a contemporary service is to make it attractive to the lost, you’re shooting in the dark. The primary reason we have contemporary worship is so that younger believers can have the opportunity to express their worship to God in a way that is meaningful for them. To a young person who has not studied music history, a Bach chorale on the pipe organ has very little meaning. Worship services are for worshipers, and they should be conducted in such a way as to communicate with the worshipers present. For more on this topic, read my blog, "It's About Content, Not Style".

Don’t start jumping to conclusions just yet. There are two more parts to this blog. I do think bringing your unsaved friends to a church service is one of the best things you can do. Notice something, you are bringing a friend who is unsaved to church. In order to do this, you have be friends with someone who’s unsaved. I don’t think the unchurched will come to church on their own . . . that’s why they’re unchurched. They don’t care how great the worship is because they don’t worship.

Okay, so making our worship service attractive to unbelievers is really improbable. Then how does the church grow? Some have said we need to let the unbelievers know about the quality of our worship services. We need to advertise on the radio, TV, Internet, and newspaper. To that, my response is we will never have a significant impact on the lost in our community by proclaiming how great we are. Don’t get me wrong. Our church is great. Our choir is excellent. Our band is very talented. Our pastors preach and pastor (shepherd) very well. But the lost don’t care about those things. They don’t care if our choir is the best in town. They don’t care if our pastors preach better than anyone else. We will not reach them by informing them that we are great.

Continued in part 2 . . .