The New Paradigm Church

Jumping into chapter one of This Little Church Went to Market by Gary Gilley, he explains what a new paradigm church is and talks about church growth.

Mega-churches are defined as those with average worship attendance of 2000 or more, but these behemoth churches come in all shapes, stripes and forms. Some are centres of great preaching and teaching, some are charismatic, others are little more than social clubs. New-paradigm churches, on the other hand, are identified by a philosophy of ministry intentionally designed to effect numerical growth. In their church growth methodologies more attention is paid to market strategy, business techniques and demographics than to New Testament instruction.

From a mountain of research [more than 1000 churches on all five continents] [Christian A.] Swartz has observed eight characteristics of growing churches. These are empowering leadership, gift-oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship, holistic small groups, need-oriented evangelism and loving relationships.

Growing churches are creating an atmosphere, an environment of fun. So fun has replaced holiness as the church's goal. If we can get the world to like us, they will embrace our Savior. That is the philosophy behind the user-friendly church movement.

Let's play 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'. For $500,000: which of these churches was a growing church in the book of Revelation: the church at Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22), which saw itself as rich and wealthy and in need of nothing or the church at Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11), which was described as poor, in tribulation and facing great persecution? Need a 'lifeline' you say? Here you go: God said of the Laodicean church that he would spit them out of his mouth, but of the Smyrna church that they would receive the crown of life. Confusing, isn't it? The growing church did not please God, while the struggling one did. Apparently, the Sunday morning worship attendance is not the criteria God uses to judge the true effectiveness of a local church.

So, Gary says, a growing church isn't necessarily one that pleases God. Reminds me of the scripture of how man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart. God is more concerned with the heart of people and churches, what's behind what is seen, than what is happening on the outside. So we need to look at why a church s growing, is it the entertainment factor, or because it is doing the Acts 2 stuff, like listed above from the survey? Good stuff. Blessings on this beautiful Thursday.