Let’s start with a quote from Tim Keller.
‘One of the most common reasons for pastoral leadership mistakes is blindness to the significance of church size. Size has an enormous impact on how a church functions. There is a “size culture” that profoundly affects how decisions are made, how relationships flow, how effectiveness is evaluated, what its ministers, staff, and lay leaders do. We tend to think of the chief differences between churches mainly in denominational or theological terms, but that underestimates the impact of size on how church operates.’
Acts 6 flags up to us that growth may be attended by pressures that could seriously effect the wellbeing of a local church (cf Acts 6.1). Stott argues that this represents one of the three great satanic counterattacks on the fledgling church — to fail to overcome these problems would be as bad as to wilt under persecution (Acts 4) or cave into compromise (Acts 5). Any reader, recalling the first exodus of the Old Testament, would hear a chilling word (‘grumbling’), and worry that complaints about food would now ruin the new work of God. Such pressures cannot be ignored!
Here are some ‘hints and tips’ for what growth pressures might look like:
