With my background, the way a church grows is pretty much the "Rick Warren" way. The first thing I think of is go door to door, talk to people and invite them to a bible study. Now with a new Reformed perspective I am wondering how a church should grow according to biblical standards.
Upon visiting many Reformed churches I am noticing that most have 100 or less people in them, even in large metroplotian areas. First of all, how does a new church plant get to any number, 25, 50, 100+. How many people are ideal before the pastor becomes overwhelmed and can't effectively pastor?

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

Grow? What's that? My pastor says he's writing a book, Pastoring a small reformed church, and keeping it that way.

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Chris Coldwell, Lakewood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Member
• Naphtali Press: Presbyterian & Reformed Books
• The Confessional Presbyterian Journal
• The Blue Banner Archive

The Regulative Principle: Samuel Miller gives a succinct statement of this principle when he writes that since the Scriptures are the “only infallible rule of faith and practice, no rite or ceremony ought to have a place in the public worship of God, which is not warranted in Scripture, either by direct precept or example, or by good and sufficient inference.”

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions? Joining PB's Politics & Government Forum

Erick,

Dr. Scott Clark just posted on his blog about this here.

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Rev. Daniel R. Hyde
Pastor, Oceanside United Reformed Church, Carlsbad/Oceanside, California
Th.M. candidate, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

I am not aware of any reformed rules against going door to door or talking to people or inviting them to a bible study. I don't think these three things should be considered PD distinctives. PD distinctives are things like less preaching and deregulated principle of worship.

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http://www.villagecommunitychurch.org/

From what I can gather from my time on the PB, Reformers see evangelism taking place within the church by an ordained minister. I'm not buying that but wouldn't that be even more impetus for brining people into the church so that they may hear the gospel? If that means door-to-door, street preaching or any other similar attempt, should it matter?

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Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

By grow I mean 0, church plant, to any one other than the pastor and his wife and kids. Not Joel Osteen, this is what I was used to.

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

How does a Reformed church grow?

Well, ya see, you have to give it a regular intake of Scripture. At its birth (in the New Testament sense), it was heavily fed on the doctrine of Jesus and the Apostles. Since that time, it's had the Word, and is there by constantly sustained and nourished. For some extra sharpening, thought not essential or necessary to growth, are some sugar goodies like Calvin, Knox, et al.

Along with this goes the application of said Nourishment.

Flourish, flourish, of church of God!

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Good article. I don't suppose you know where is kansas city that is? That is my home town and some of those names sound familiar.

Like he stated in the article, most of the churches around here are what I term "Walmart" churches, they move into town and put all the "Ma and Pa" churches out of business. When asked where their church growth came from they state that it is not new converts, it is people who left their small 100 or less member churches, and went for the glamour of the big church. One pastor of a growing chruch stated that he was frustrated that no one was getting baptised even though their church was growing exponential. My wife and I called his church "The American Idol" church, because that is what it reminded me of. It was a lot of mediocre singing and mediocre preaching, but I guess that is what people wanted.

Another point from the article. I come from a Pentecostal background. Since leaving I have visited a fair number of churches trying to be "hip" with good music. They are playing the good music, but act like they either don't know what to do or are to scared they will speak in tongues, so they just stand there and clap. It reminds me of the move "The Jerk," where Steve Martin is adopted by a black family and he is standing on the porch stomping and clapping out of time with the music. Maybe non-Pentecostals should stick with hymns.

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

This is an absolutely great article! Every pastor should be required to read this and contemplate what he is saying.

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Hi Erick,

It was, by turns, Hope Reformed, Walnut Creek Presbyterian, and now, Northland Reformed Church. When I was pastor, we were at 3901 N. Wayne, just west of I-29/I-35 and Russell Road about 5 minutes (or less) north of downtown KCMO.

Cheers,

rsc

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R. Scott Clark, D.Phil
Professor of Church History and Historical Theology

"For Christ, His Gospel, and His Church"
Associate Pastor
Oceanside URC
The Heidelblog

That was an amazing article, thank you for linking to it. I especially like "What about evangelism? Rather than making it something that we "do" it is something that we are." Come to think of it, I have benefited immensely from everything Dr. Clark has written on his blog and on PB.

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Patrick Arnold
Covenant OPC, Brighton, MI
MA student in philosophy at the University of Michigan

I am no "expert" on church growth. But I do pastor a Reformed church that I planted with the help of two other elders six years ago.

The three of us pastors moved to California with no prospective members, no core groups, no demographic work, or anything else the "church growth" manuals advised us to have. We just felt that God wanted us to start a biblical church, our home churches agreed to support us, and few other churches agreed to support us financially as well, and off we went.

Growth has been slow but steady.
In six years we have trained and ordained two more pastors who now minister with us on our pastors' council. We have another pastor in training.
We've knocked on doors, mailed mailers, made phone calls and visits, kept a good website, bought radio and newspaper and yellowpages ads, and anything else that we could think of to announce to people our existence.
But most of all, we have found that God has just blessed us in spite of us.
We have about 150 members and about 250 people visit our church regularly.
I am usually shocked when anyone visits the second time.
I preach expositionally (recently been two years in John), we have a strong biblical counceling ministry, we have many bible studies for all ages (kids and adults), we have a warm and loving fellowship of members, we have a healthy process of church discipline, we evangelize and baptize those who repent and believe in Christ, and have a very decent worship team of musicians and singers who sing a lot of music from "In Christ Alone" to hymns to stuff written yesterday.
People are attracted to our strong leadership, distinctly sound doctrine, friendliness, and high view of all things spiritual.
Though I have an accent from my Southern Louisiana roots, I dress casual on Sundays, preach from the ESV, and often use very Calvinistic and Reformed terminology. The people find it... "refreshingly miserable." That is actually a quote from a guy who said, "I am so tired of churches that just preach these feel good happy face sermons. Your sermons are refreshingly miserable. They address the reality of this world."
Like I said, I am surprised they come back.
But the church just continues to grow both numerically and spiritually.
And I would be remiss if I didn't give worthy due to the strength of the pastors at our church. God has surrounded me with men much more equipped than myself. There wisdom and fortitude, patience and love as pastors makes our church a "safe-haven" for many Christians who are extremely suspicious of the "tossed about" churches of our day.
These men, all equal in authority, share responsibilities, keep one another accountable, and know their sheep.
I don't know if I am just the eternal optimist, but I believe if you build it biblically -- God's people will come.

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~ Destined to Know Him ~
Jason E. Robertson
a Pastor of Murrieta Valley Church, CA
FIDE-O

A Reformed Church grows like this...

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Pastor Jerrold H. Lewis. (Dipl. IT; Assc. A; B.Th; M.Th Candidate, PRTS)
Lacombe Free Reformed Church
"A hot iron, though blunt, will pierce sooner than a cold one, though sharper."

JOHN FLAVEL

My Blog - Click HERE
Our Church site - Click HERE

Nametags?

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Vaughan
BTh Student, Sydney Missionary Bible College
Ashfield Presbyterian Church
Sydney, Australia
The Ransomed

I only have three kids and sometimes need name tags.

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~ Destined to Know Him ~
Jason E. Robertson
a Pastor of Murrieta Valley Church, CA
FIDE-O

to that, brother!

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~James Helbert~, Wytheville, VA
Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCUS
TheBibleAlone.com / The Edinburgh Inn
"Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” - Zechariah 3:2

my two cents:

1. articulate/emphasize law and gospel so that every "man" can understand....this may require us to give up words that make us comfortable in our reformed sense of identity like "propitiation" and "John Calvin"

2. teach people the drama and power of the sacraments

3. charge ruling elders with getting into people's lives to disciple rather than administrating

4. be a blessing to the local community, in the name of Jesus, in tangible, earthy ways

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Joel Batts
Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) - Memphis, TN

"Why wasn't God watching? Why wasn't God listening? Why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?"
- Tom Waits
But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. - Psalm 10:14

Awesome reply! (Not that you need my affirmation)

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I'm sure he meant the smiles.

__________________
Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Well, having been in several Reformed churches that did not grow (numerically for sure, and the spiritual growth was lacking in many areas as well), I can say one thing that many Reformed churches (Presybterian that is, I have no experience in the Reformed baptist world), big and small, seem to have a problem in the friendliness area. You walk in and you don't feel welcome. If you don't feel like there is the possibility of fellowship, it's unlikely you'll return and stay. This is not a church growth method--just simple common sense and principles of biblical fellowship that would be good for Reformed churches to make more of a habit.

Note: My experience is obviously limited to just that, my experience. This is not to say that all Reformed churches suffer from this. But I have come across many that do.

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Joel S.
St. Paul's Presbyterian Church (Orlando, FL)
M.Div. Student, RTS Orlando, Oviedo, FL

http://biblebased.wordpress.com/2007...re-they-built/

Here's another helpful article.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.