For the past 30 years the primary indicator of health in church metrics is weekend attendance. We know that “healthy things grow.” so obviously the faster our church grows the healthier it is. We celebrate the largest and fastest growing churches as the models we all want to emulate. When a new church plant explodes in growth we crowd around the pastor to learn his secrets.
The challenge is that healthy things aren’t the only things that grow. Weeds grow faster than healthy plants, and cancer cells kill the body by growing faster than other, healthier cells. By focusing on numerical-growth church metrics we may inadvertently feed the very thing that could choke out true health.