We’ve heard a lot about “church growth” in recent years. A seminary in California promotes what is called “the church-growth school.” Our Home Mission Board is also into this “church-growth” business lately. “400,000 by 2000” is the catchy slogan. By the year 2000 the CRC is supposed to have 400,000 members.

Concern for the lost is commendable. The church is called to testify to what it has seen and heard. We are the light of the world and the salt of the earth, said Jesus. But is this the way to go about it? Must we get into the “numbers game?”

When one reads the New Testament, particularly the epistles of Paul and the letters of Christ to the seven churches in Asia Minor, he reads nothing about this kind of thing. One looks in vain for the mandate to grow in numbers. We are told to grow, but that is a different kind of growth: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Pet. 3:18); “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20). The sustained emphasis in the letters of Paul and of Christ to the seven churches is upon faithfulness to the gospel (hold fast to the Word) and  a way of life that accords with godliness. That’s all; no more, no less. The Pastoral epistles, too, are a sustained call to “guard the good deposit” and to “hold to the pattern of sound words.”

The apostle placed no pressure on the church to produce converts.

There were no monthly sales reports. They did not think of themselves as salesmen of the world’s greatest product, as we are sometimes told to think of ourselves. This business of salesmen of a great product is a catchy idea taken over from our Western business world rather than from the Bible (A. Hoksbergen in Banner, Mar. 14, 75).

The church must be faithful to the Lord and to the Word of the Lord. That is all, and that is everything.

The New Testament epistle-writers concentrated not on stirring up Christians to evangelize but rather on developing healthy Christians through spiritual food, rest, and exercise . . . .  Just now the number-one item on the agenda is repentance in the Church accompanied by confession and forsaking of sin, reconciliation and restitution, separation from the world, submission to the Lordship of Christ, and the filling of the Spirit (Vance Haveer in Christianity Today).

The late Dr. Eldersveld was right when he said once that “this modern concern about the number of converts can have a disastrous effect upon evangelism.” Yes, and a disastrous effect upon the church too. For then numbers and statistics become the primary concern, and everything else must be geared to this end. That means, oftentimes, accommodating the gospel to suit the hearers. We see this happening right in the CRC. John Rozeboom, executive director of Home Missions, wrote recently in The Banner that the

CRC must dump a lot of “the baggage” that is incidental and “does not contribute” (to church growth). Part of this “baggage” “might be a Christian school.”

There you have it: If a Christian school stands in the way of “church growth,” then it becomes baggage that must be tossed out. It stands in the way of our goal. Listen to Eldersveld:

Well, it seems there are many people who make the same sort of mistake in religion. They are pretty well mixed up. They don’t know the difference between “headlight” and “sunlight” any more. And probably because they have been told that there isn’t a great deal of difference. I have always wondered what that rooster did when he saw the sun coming up. It must have been terribly confusing. And it must have been a great relief when he finally discovered the difference between those two lights. The same thing is true with people who are confused about religion. You do them a real favor when you tell them plainly that the Way of Christ is the right Way, and the only Way.

Evidently the first Christians were uncompromisingly loyal to their Lord, who simply and bluntly told them the truth in the midst of their confusion. And so they were known as followers of the Way. This made them very conspicuous in their world, distinctively different. They didn’t always win friends and influence people. Many times they had to stand all alone. They paid a high price for believing in the Way, and for insisting that it was the only way to God, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

But that name for Christianity didn’t last very long. It was soon discarded. I wonder why. Was it too hard to wear? Was it too exclusive? Did it eventually make mission work too difficult, because it put severe limitations on membership in the Church? Was it perhaps offensive and did it antagonize people who might have joined the Church if they had not been told that they would have to give up their old religion altogether? Did it make too many enemies?

Those are good questions for Rozeboom and the Home Missions Board. Questions that cry out for answers, honest answers. To the (seemingly flourishing) church of Sardis, Christ writes: “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” To the (seemingly no-growth)

church of Philadelphia, He writes: “I know you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” The latter was the living church in the eyes of Christ. It seems that some of us would prefer Sardis instead. It’s not what we think or what the world thinks that’s important, but it’s all important how Christ sees us. He is the Head and Judge of the church.

Speaking of “church growth,” let us remember that at the present time there are some 200 families (at least 400 souls) who were formerly CRC, and are now organized as O-(Orthodox) CRC. And whatever we might think of them, it cannot be denied that most of them were among our best, most faithful and loyal members, members we can ill afford to lose. They left because of the weakening of the Reformed faith in the CRC. Talk about “church growth” in reverse! And let’s remember one thing: If things continue as they are in the CRC, (if we continue to throw out Reformed “baggage”) more will leave.

At that rate 400,000 is a long way off!!

Indeed, we’ll never reach it, and we don’t deserve to either. The company of believers grew in the early church, and not because the church had sophisticated methods and programs. It had no public relations department, no researchers, no experts. All Christians had then through thick and thin was reliance upon the promised presence of and the leading of His Spirit.

Those who want church growth today may have to reset their priorities (G. Spykman in Today).

The church’s primary task is to build up the people of God as committed, mature, thoroughgoing citizens of the kingdom of heaven in the midst of the kingdoms of this world. When that is being done, I believe the Lord will add to the church such as are being saved (Howard G. Hageman in Reformed Journal).