Growth (Decline) of the Church

If attendance is any indication of church growth, this year's Conference was an eye opener. In fact, it attracted close to 300 pastors. Last year's attendance was sparse so much so the visiting speaker commented on it and said he hoped the numbers would double the next time he visits Sabah. His suggestion was great, if one pastor encouraged one or two people to become pastors, in 5 years the numbers would double. Why numbers matter?

Because the first Conference I had a part in organising in 1996, exactly 30 years ago, we attracted at least 250 pastors to an interior venue, a College Campus, my first place of ministry at MTS/BTS Melangkap. 

After 30 years one would expect the numbers to double if not triple, but alas the stagnant numbers are a sign of the church in decline. Frankly, in the past 25 years, it has been in decline and the percentage of Christians in the State of Sabah fell along with it from 35% in the 1990s to 24% now, and in my reckoning in the main cities it is even much less, there are only 5% Christians at most in the urban centres now that are populated with unbelievers and non-Christians. 

Truly it is a harvest fields and we need pastors who know how to grow churches. For sure, it is the Lord who gives growth but God uses men and anointed pastors to do His work and enlarge His kingdom on earth. 

One pastor in the city just left his church of about 30 adults and went to work in Australia as his church just does not have enough members (less members less offerings) to afford him a reasonable compensation. 

Even in my most recent church of average 100 adults with at least 20-25 working (wage earners) members could barely made ends meet, though in the last few months, we did see an increase in the offerings. But there are a lot of factors, one of which is effective leadership, a pastor empowered to lead the church, and not treated as a church employee when the elders called the shots or interfered with the pastor's authority all the time. I might post on this in a later post, more reflections of the Pastors' Conference just concluded yesterday.