7 Reasons Churches Choose to Have a Smaller Impact

Tony Morgan's excellent blog (for which I have had the honor of being a guest blogger) featured this post today:

Yesterday I was reading about a leadership change at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. It included this great observation from Mark Driscoll:

“Church size affects nearly every aspect of a church; bigger churches are not simply larger versions of smaller churches, but rather very different organizations.”

In my church consulting experiences, I see this all the time. Churches cling to what worked in the past assuming that it will bring success in the future. That rarely happens. In order to sustain growth and health, churches need to change.

Because churches are unwilling to give up on what worked for them in the past, here’s what I see:

1. Churches get pulled in many different directions and lack a unified purpose, even though the Bible reminds us “There should be no division in the body.”
2. Churches hold on to their structure, even though Scripture tells us “New wine calls for new wineskins.”
3. Churches don’t define and implement strategies to accomplish God’s vision, even though the Proverbs tells us “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity.”
4. Churches don’t embrace new leadership, even though God’s Word instructs us to find capable people and “Appoint them as leaders over groups of one thousand, one hundred, fifty, and ten.”
5. Churches fail to establish systems, even though we know “God is not a God of disorder.”
6. Churches don’t prepare financially for the future, even though Jesus told us to “First sit down and estimate the cost.”
7. Churches don’t welcome counsel from people with experience, even though we’re reminded that “Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.”

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. We can’t become the church God’s intends for us to be if we’re unwilling to become the church God’s intends for us to be.