Growing Churches & Multiplying Disciples in the Mega-City:  Are we up to it?

One of the questions I have often pondered is how the church can grow in a mega-city?  There are plenty of people for sure. In some ways the modern city is like the first city of refuge, Babel, in that it is a place where people congregate for their security and livelihood. But mega-cities are at the same time scattered places. Distance, the tyranny of traffic, the isolation of high rise apartments, and the ubiquitous security defences tend to separate rather then bring people together.

How could the church grow in such an environment? With difficulty, is the short answer. The external and internal constraints are great. But before I get too far ahead of myself, some will ask why does the church need to grow? And which church are we talking about?

1. Which Church?

We could start with any local church. Does it need to grow? Does it want to grow? Some small churches want to grow so that they are big enough to sustain the kind of life that the members value. But once that size is reached the tendency is not to grow any more. Research indicates that traditional churches are unconsciously self-limiting. That is, there is an optimum number beyond which a church will not grow unless a different pattern of life is developed.

This first major limit is related to relationships. And although this is partly to do with members having relationships with other members, in fact it is mostly connected with the members knowing and being known by the minister. There is a limit to the number of people who can become spokes in this minister-centric wheel.

Beyond that a different method is required. Most of these methods involve breaking up the congregation into smaller units in which the same kind of relationship recognition can take place. Some churches focus on programs designed to meet the needs of particular interest groups – each with their own significant leader. Others develop extensive small group networks. Some combine either of these with large concert like meetings where the sense of belonging happens on a different level.

However, growing the church may not be the best way to express the question because it leads us to think about particular congregations getting larger. While this is generally a good thing, the main question is not primarily about the church.

A better way to approach the question may be to ask how the disciples of Jesus can multiply in a mega-city, and if they did multiply, what would be the best way for them to meet as the church.

2. Making disciples

Once we talk about multiplying disciples we are taken back to the mandate Jesus gave his followers (Matt 28). And we are faced with a personal decision about whether we want to do what he said. In some ways talking about church, and especially about church services, is much easier because it allows us to talk about structures and methods. But making disciples involves talking about the message and people.

Well not talking about it, but doing it. How can disciples multiply in a mega-city? Some would read this as a methodological question also. And it is in a way. But it is not really our question. Because the multiplying of disciples is in the first place the responsibility of the Master. He is the one who has to decide on the method. The disciples should follow the method the Master taught them. And the method the Master modelled and taught was to make disciples by teaching and practising the message, and to use disciples to do it.

Disciples are the method. And the tools they have are just the message of repentance and forgiveness that Jesus taught them (Luke 24), and the power from the Holy Spirit which he gave them for the task.

In fact the evidence suggests that it is the Holy Spirit who directs the disciple-making process. The spread of the message in Acts is obviously directed by God. Paul seems to have thought of a tactic in that he visited the synagogue first when he went to a new town. But the big strategy was not planned by the disciples. Church history, I think, suggests the same.

No doubt the Holy Spirit calls disciples together to work in teams, to engage in cooperative ventures to take the gospel to all the nations. No doubt church fellowships are stirred up to act together to bring the message to their community, and to send some to the outside to make disciples of alien groups. But the cooperative ventures are not the heart of disciple-making.  There are three central parts: disciples, the message, and power from the Holy Spirit.

But how does it happen?