What number would put you in the top half?

Of course, there’s no real way to work out the answer to the following conundrum…

What would put you in the top half of growing churches?

What metric would be used to work out the answer?

Conversions?

Baptisms?

Attendance?

I can think of problems with all of these measurements.

Conversions, since they are a genuine movement of the heart, can be unseen or unattested too.

Baptisms are skewed towards congregations with a large number of families, and will naturally advantage denominations who baptise babies.

Attendance, while able to be accurately tracked, may not reflect the genuine belief within the pews on any given Sunday.

Finally, when it comes to the growth of the church, there’s a tremendous advantage for those outside of the West and the number you initially start with.

What would be the outcome if we only measured across Australia?

How about just Sydney?

Frankly, there would be a lot of churches who would barely register a blip on the church growth radar.

Faithful, but stagnant churches.

Jesus loving, but shrinking congregations.

So, where would you rank if you grew by just one believer?

How about three?

Five?

Ten?

I have been attached to a number of churches which would be eclipsed in growth if you expanded by double-digits.

Again, there’s no accurate way to determine the solution to this, but I suspect the number required to be in the top half of church growth would be depressingly small…