3 (Good) Reasons Your Church Isn't Growing

If your church isn't growing, it doesn't always mean something is wrong, it could mean something is right. I know for a lot of us church leaders, church growth is, well, it's an idol.

Let's be honest, it's an idol. It's tough on our egos when our church isn't growing or is getting smaller. Sometimes it is an indication that something isn't going right, but that's not always the case. 

So let's look at three good reasons your church might not be growing,

Your preaching isn't people focused

It is no secret that people, all people, like to hear about themselves. In fact, we would much prefer to hear about ourselves than about our God... that's just our sinful nature. It's true of everyone. Photographers know this all too well. People usually don't care about your pictures until they are in them. They've done scientific studies of people looking at pictures, and their eyes always go to themselves first and THEN look at the rest of the picture.

I'm not putting people down, it's just our nature to think about ourselves first. Some unscrupulous preachers know this all too well and use it to bring people to their churches. Their sermons are focused on us; on what we can do, on the things that we need, on the things we can get from God, on us. This is to the detriment of learning about God and the gospel. Our sermons should be God-focused, and then through this we can learn about ourselves. 

It's one of the reasons the prosperity gospel is so popular, because what the prosperity gospel does is put the control back in our hands; it's about what we do, about how we think, about the words we say... We have the power in the prosperity gospel. God is just a bank. 

Your church might not be growing because you're talking about God too much and not enough about us, and that's not a bad thing. 

On the flipside, you can go too far and not talk about people at all. The Bible is about God, church is about God, worship is about God, but we learn about ourselves through God. Christ died on the cross for us, so we are a part of the Gospel. We need to know how the Gospel relates to us. 

So it is possible that your church is not growing because you talk about God more than you talk about… me. 

You're not putting on a good enough show 

If you are smaller church, then the mega church down the street most likely puts on a much better show than you do. It's just the truth. They have more money, they have a bigger pool of talent to pull from, they have a bigger pool of ideas to pull from, they just have more resources to put on a good show, 

I'm not talking bad about those churches, there are a lot of fantastic mega churches that really have a heart for the Gospel. But sometimes it does mean people will go to that church over yours because they're looking for a big emotional experience.

And it's a good thing that you don't put on the same show they do, because you're not them. 

You don't have the same resources, the same money, probably not even the same talent. I know it's hard to hear, but some churches just have less musical talent than others. That doesn't mean they have less worship potential than others. Your church should be your church, your worship culture should be your worship culture. If that's just one person on the stage with an acoustic guitar singing songs, that's fine, you're not going for a show, you're going for worship. 

I personally know it is so easy to be jealous of that mega church down the street with the good show, especially when they're pulling people away from your church. But that's okay because, truthfully, you probably don't want your church to grow just because people want to see the show you put on. You want your church to grow because people are changing and getting to know God. Each church, from the big-show-mega-church to the small family church,  have their own place in the kingdom, and God is using each for a different purpose. 

The flip side is that's not an excuse to just phone it in… “well, they're gonna put on a better show anyway, so it doesn’t matter what we do”. That is the wrong attitude, we want to bring our best. It might not be as “good” as their best, but it doesn't need to be, it just needs to be us.

It's not supposed to grow

I think, through the whole church growth culture, we've created this idea that God always wants every churches to grow in numbers, and I’m not sure that's true. 

I don't think God always wants every church to get more people into their building. He DOES want more people to come to know Him and to experience the gospel. He always wants that. But that doesn't mean that your congregation will be adding more members or will be getting more people in the worship service. 

There's a lot of reasons why this could be. People may be encountering God in your church and you might be getting new members, but you may also have people leaving. I lead worship in an urban church where a lot of people lived very mobile lives. They would work in this city for a couple of months or years, and then move to another city, their job would take them away. Sometimes the church would get smaller, not because something was wrong, but because that was just the culture of the area we were in. Maybe your church is the size it needs to be to best serve the people there. Getting bigger isn't always better.

Now this, of course, it's just my opinion, but I think that God keeps churches at the same size or even makes them smaller. I don't think that every church is always meant to grow.

I know a lot of pastors can get really down when their churches don't grow and even more so when they get smaller. It MAY be an indication that something is wrong, but it may also be an indication that something is going very... right.