From Church Growth to Kingdom Growth

According to Evangelism Today, the cost per baptism in North America is $1,518,991. That’s the cost of all church-related work—buildings, salaries, schools, publications, broadcasts, etc.—divided by the reported number of baptisms. Certainly, even the casual observer knows that church in America is big business. The dirty little secret—according to Reggie NcNeal—is that churches have made no progress in reaching the unsaved. McNeal says after 40 years of mass-market evangelism, high-tech churches, and huge spending, the percentage of North Americans who claim to be Christian has not changed by even 1%. In the meantime, over the last 10 years, the operating cost for the typical church has gone up 40-60%, meaning it’s costing more of the typical church budget just to keep the lights on and the doors open. What is left for evangelism? Can we afford to keep spending so much money and have so little to show for it?

McNeal says as good as we (American churches) do church, we aren’t reaching non-Christians. “We’ve peaked as far as reaching [non-Christians] in terms of how we do church.” According to McNeal, “Religious people have always been a problem for God.” He illustrates from Jonah 4, after the conversion of Nineveh:

But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, "O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

But the Lord replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"

Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" (Jonah 4)

We err by thinking that we have to take God to people, that God is not talking to non-Christians at all. Rather, McNeal says, “Of course God is talking to people all the time ... God is at work in his redemptive mission in the world.” Consider:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Jesus doesn’t say, “For God so loved the church ...”! McNeal concludes that in our mission to engage the world, we should consider God’s charge to Abraham:

For I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:3)

Specifically, God tells Abraham, “Everyone not of your tribe will be blessed through you.” We exist not to bless others at church, but others outside of the church! McNeal opines, “We do not need an evangelism strategy, we need a blessing strategy ... the key to conversion is to bless people ... serve the community [by blessing people’ and let that backwash into the church!”

Points to Ponder

“Our specialness is that we get to see [spiritually] dead people come to life.” (McNeal) How does this statement make you feel?

Is it the pastor’s job alone to be the blessing? Is it the church leadership’s job? What role should you be playing in being a blessing? Do you really need someone to tell you what to do—do you need to wait for God to tell you what to do—or is it possible that you just begin to “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8) and just deal with whatever comes your way?