What is healthy grows all by itself

Recently I have been confronted a few times with the question whether it is absolutely necessary for the seetal chile to continue to grow. need to grow. After I preached in August about the "Great Commission" from Matthew 28 some thought that it was all about the church growing.

Obviously I have communicated this verbally and non-verbally over the last few years. It's true, my frame of mind was shaped by a phrase I heard from Rick Warren in the Rick Warren from the community building movement. He writes: What is healthy grows all by itself. What is meant by this is that healthy congregations grow all by themselves. The converse is also true: if a congregation does not grow If a congregation is not growing, then something must be sick or wrong.

In the meantime this sentence as simply wrong and turn away from it. I am sorry if I have embodied this enslaving principle. It is precisely a look at nature nature shows that it is precisely not the case that every healthy organism organism grows and grows. Healthy human beings or ants or trees do not grow grow and grow. Once the genetically predetermined size has been reached, it is much is about constant renewal and no longer about growth. In the same way, the size of a congregation is more likely to be predetermined by God than to be constantly through the healthiest possible principles.

I do not know whether the God-given greatness has already been reached in the seetal chile. Because this question is not important, I do not want to focus on it. Regardless of the size of the church, the point is to be renewed, to be on the way to the people and to bring heaven to earth. Let us leave it up to God whether this results in numerical growth or not. What is certain is that there are parameters that are much more meaningful for the health of a church than its size. I will write about that next month! 😉

Foreword from the seetal chile Poscht 10/2019