Size Doesn't Matter But Quality Does!

According to many leaders size matters. Numbers matter, activity matters and cell groups matter, especially if everyone is having fun. We know that these things matter a lot to them because this is almost their entire focus. On the surface it looks a thriving community church. But this no indication of value. In a drought sheep gather around empty water holes just as God’s sheep do in many churches. Many sheep have learned to make do with gathering at the waterhole whether or not there is any water there to quench their thirst. A certain school of church growth specialises in multiplying empty water holes. Their churches are like trees with lots of foliage but no fruit. They are places where many are anxious to tell the sheep how to make branches, how to make leaves but not how to be intimate with Jesus. It doesn’t occur to these leaders that fruitfulness might have something to do with roots, deep roots.

People need to be rooted intimately in the life of Jesus if they are to endure and be fruitful. Thus Jesus said, ‘Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away’ Mark 4:14-17 (NIV) Later Jesus kicked the marketers of rootless and fruitless religion out of the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts’ Mark 11:14-16 (NIV).

What is being marketed here is not Life, but humanistic religious merchandise - the spiritual equivalent of junk food. Life flows from relationship not abstractions. Relationship flows from intimate personal connection. The intimate personal connection that produces the community of God is oneness with Jesus Christ. For this there is no substitute. This is the ‘Other Seed’ that is different to formulas and psycho-babble. Jesus said, ‘Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times’ Mark 4:8 (NIV).

Notice that this ‘other seed’ is not based on numbers but on roots that go deep into good soil. What would you rather have? A church of 2000 consisting of those who don’t understand the gospel, those who have let go of the truth they once had, those who use Christ’s name to advance self, those who are married to money and those who are fair weather christians. Or would you prefer a church of twelve men and women who are so hungry for Jesus that they would die for Him?

The fact that so many choose the former is the reason why the contemporary church is so innefective. Those fixated on numbers, formulas and programs shake the leaves and starve the sheep. Those who lead people into intimacy with Jesus make fresh bread and feed sheep. Real church growth is about our rootedness in Jesus and feeding sheep food that lasts. The path to this food is found in forgiveness, repentance and a hunger to see Jesus’ face.

The disciples saw that the people were hungry. Jesus said to them, “YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT”.