Tag: Church growth

Tag: church-growth

Doodle: Why Wasn't Isaiah's Ministry More Successful?

A few years before the cataclysmic end of Mars Hill, I can remember Mark Driscoll exhorting pastors to preach like Arminians but sleep like Calvinists. And as much as I...

Graham Heslop
22 Apr 2024

Church Size: Six Theses

A friend once left a note on my desk, in jest, saying: “Get over your big church issues.” While my critics might have phrased it differently, my writing on the...

Graham Heslop
11 Oct 2023

The Celebration of Tyranny in Pastoral Ministry

A few years back I attended a seminar on church growth. During one of the sessions, a church growth guru shared an anecdote from his ministry. He was the pastor...

Graham Heslop
05 May 2022

8 Reasons Redeemer Multiplied Instead Of Remaining A Megachurch

Since a personal turning point in 2016, I’ve become increasingly suspicious of the church growth movement, megachurches, and evaluating ministry success by church size or metrics. Since then I’ve written...

Graham Heslop
08 Apr 2022

3 Timothy

Paul’s Third Epistle to Timothy: A Satire

Graham Heslop
17 Sep 2020

Pastor, You Are A Shepherd Not A Rancher

Writing at Mere Orthodoxy, Jake Meador quoted these words from a friend, “I’m a shepherd…When my flock gets so big that I don’t know all their names, I’ve become a...

Graham Heslop
16 Jul 2019

Pastor, God Grows Churches

When I finished writing this post I had a toss up over what its title should be. So here is the alternative heading: Pastor, Neither Men Nor Methods Grow Churches. Theologically...

Graham Heslop
02 Jul 2019

Pastor, Why Do You Want a Big Church?

Does that strike you as a strange question? Of course we want big churches because that will mean more people know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. That may be...

Graham Heslop
19 Mar 2019

Pastor, You are Dispensable

The confluence of social media, celebrity pastor culture, hugely successful churches and the millennial assumption that everyone is exceptional has lead many pastors to a dangerously over-exaggerated view of themselves....

Graham Heslop
20 Feb 2019

How’s It Going? Part 6: Build your own

This is the last in a series of posts on church metrics. We’re going to close off this series with some how-to tips. We’ve seen that a metric is any...

Kyle Groger
06 Sep 2018

How’s It Going? Part 5: Pitfalls

If you are gung-ho and ready to go, I want to help you avoid some landmines. Below are two common pitfalls. Avoiding them will save you much frustration. Unintended side-effects...

Kyle Groger
04 Sep 2018

How’s It Going? Part 4: A common objection

I want to address a common objection at this point. One of the most thrown around lines in management blogs is “What gets measured gets managed”. This is held alongside...

Kyle Groger
30 Aug 2018

How’s it going? Part 3: Why are external measures important?

Those of you who have made it this far may be having two responses: firstly, this sounds like a lot of work and, secondly, I’m not sure it’s worth the...

Kyle Groger
28 Aug 2018

How’s It Going? Part 2: We need a scoreboard

I’m of the opinion that improving in how we evaluate our ministries can help us be better stewards of the resources God has given us, helping us better meet His...

Kyle Groger
23 Aug 2018

How’s It Going? Part 1: An alternative to beating up on numbers

Soon after I finished studying at theological college, I was hit with some bad news: my father had fallen terminally ill. He’d invested a lot in me so, when he...

Kyle Groger
20 Aug 2018

Church Growth: A Response

Recently on Rekindle, Graham has reflected on church metrics. What I’m posting here was originally written as a comment on this post, but I've decided to move it to a...

Kyle Groger
30 May 2018

Church Growth: Must We be Passionate about Numerical Growth?

A few weeks back I posted on church attendance and the role numbers might play in evaluating ministry, both positively and negatively. I argued that unqualified numbers indicate little more...

Graham Heslop
17 May 2018

Church Growth: The Place of Metrics in Evaluating Ministry

Attending a conference, denominational synod, or church planting seminar, you do not have to wait long before you are discussing numbers and attendance. It’s not even that people specifically ask...

Graham Heslop
12 Apr 2018

Some Misgivings about Andrew Heard's Lifeboat Analogy

In a recent conversation about the latest Generate Conference, a friend shared his reservations about an analogy Andrew Heard deployed in almost every session. If you are unfamiliar with it,...

Graham Heslop
20 Jul 2016