By now, I’m sure you’re all tired of reading about church growth. I know I’m tired of writing about it . . . ☺ This will be the last blog (I hope). In the first three blogs, “Concerning Practical Evangelism,” I raised the question, “What is the secret to successful church growth?” Then I said that I don’t believe there is just one secret, but rather several pieces that all must be in place and fit together for successful growth to be achieved. I identified a few components I feel are very important: (1) each of us must passionately live our faith, (2) we need to build relationships with the lost, and (3) we must have intelligible and compelling worship services. (By the way, intelligible is just a fancy way of saying understandable.)

Now I want to write a little more about this third point. Why is compelling and intelligible worship essential for church growth? I believe there are two reasons. The first, and primary reason is because compelling and intelligible worship encourages, equips, and inspires Christians to live and share their faith. If you thought the only reason we have contemporary worship was to reach the lost, you thought wrong. We do have the lost in mind, but our principal reason for the contemporary service is so younger believers can worship in a way that is meaningful and intelligible for them. To a young person who hasn’t studied music history, a Buxtehude organ prelude has little meaning (if you don’t know who or what Buxtehude is, you probably fall into this category).

The second, and also important reason for compelling and intelligible worship is that unbelievers who may be present need to understand and be inspired by what is happening. We see this in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church when he rebukes them for disorderly worship. He tells them their worship services need to be understandable to unbelievers who may be present. If it’s important enough for Paul to mention, I’d say we should listen.

Allow me a few more minutes to make one more point. The worst possible thing that can happen to a church in terms of its growth is the Field of Dreams Mentality. “If we build it, they will come” is not true. Simply having compelling and intelligible worship services is not, repeat, not going to bring in any lost people.

I’ve seen this happen more than once. People think, “We have a great service. It’s really cool. Now our church will grow.” When we get stuck in this frame of mind, we tend to think about advertising instead of relationship building. If only people knew about our great service, they would come . . . or so we think. But the reality is we will never have a significant impact on the lost in our community by proclaiming how great we are. The unchurched are not attracted by our great worship services, they are attracted by the relationships we build with them; basically, the lost will only come to church if we bring them. Compelling and intelligible worship will never get people in the doors, but it does help keep people once they’ve come.

And now it’s time to bring “Concerning Practical Evangelism” to a close. I believe there is no magic bullet to church growth. Instead there are a variety of factors which all must work together in order for us to reach the lost. As Christians, we must be passionately living our faith. This means in every aspect of our lives we are obsessed with the things of God. We also have to build relationships with the unsaved. Keep in mind that reaching the lost doesn’t mean simply making converts. Rather, it means making passionate disciples - and that means continuing the relationship and being a mentor. A third piece is worshiping in a compelling, intelligible service where we are encouraged, equipped, and inspired to live our faith and reach the lost. While great worship services are important for building a desire for them to come back, we must realize that the lost will only come to church if we bring them . . . so bring them!