A wise pastor once said; ‘The pastor’s job is to tend the flock but the sheep must do the multiplying, the pastor can’t do that.’ This is true and begs the question – why aren’t the sheep multiplying? Corporate churches are in decline with no sign of an overall comeback in Canada as the picture below shows. Unfortunately, many still think pastor leaders are key to multiplying the church. They aren’t.
Mature Christians are the key to church multiplication. The corporate churches have not had a very good track record in nurturing the flock to maturity. The apostle Peter points out that the qualities of a mature Christian provide the fruitful life of multiplication that is so lacking in the declining church; “For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.” (2 Peter 1:8,9) Corporate church goers are raised up to be passive consumers of the typical one hour Sunday church service. And the church is not growing because of it.
The apostle James warns us of the danger of this learned passivity; “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:23-25) All the statistics show that the corporate church is missing out on the blessings of spiritual maturity in its members. This is may be a sad situation but it isn’t necessarily bad.
Decline doesn’t have to mean death. It can provoke the church to change. Hard questions need to be asked by the leaders of the corporate church. The church must go beyond the simplistic answer of work harder to create more of the same thing. A declining church system that produces this problem cannot produce the answer. Only the Holy Spirit can provide the answer and where can we go to find the Spirit’s inspiration?
Continuing in this Scripture passage we read; “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:10,11) Do what things? Oh yes; ” . . . giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” (v. 5-7)
As the church returns to faithful preaching and the faithful to following the Word the flock will mature and the church will multiply!
Steps Down The Road 