Thanks for such a thoughtful and gracious response to those tasteless comments, Ron. I've been grateful for the delete button on my blog a few times, too. The internet has a way of making everyone feel like their comments are valid, no matter how thoughtless, cruel or off-topic they may be. The good news is, they inspired you to write this post, which will help a lot of pastors and church members.

These are great ideas, Ron. Not too simplistic. No guilt. All are helpful.

This is a very helpful and well-balanced post, Ron.

As someone who spends a lot of time working with Small Churches, I'm sometime perceived as one of those people who you say "can disagree with me (and do) when I say I believe healthy churches are growing". The reason some of us are perceived that way is because we don't think butts-in-the-seats growth is inevitable for every healthy church. But you clarify that well when you add "Some grow in different ways. Some internally and some by raising up people who go outside the church to make disciples." That's dead-on.

I think one of the challenges we have though, is the assumption that lack of numerical growth is automatically a problem to be fixed. I don't think that's your assumption, but that may be the assumption behind the people who ask you that question. One of the questions I think an outside consultant should be asked to assess is "is the church healthy and growing even if there isn't a butts-in-the-seats increase?" If so, I believe many pastors need to relax about their numerical growth. Obsessing about getting more people in the building can lead to unhealthy methods, sick churches and burnt-out pastors. I know. I've seen a lot of it. You probably have, too.

It's better to concentrate on health (including outreach, ministry, and evangelism in addition to fellowship, worship and discipleship) and let God take of of whether-or-not that leads to more people in the building. Not every church will get bigger, but every church can - and should - grow. As you also said well "Regardless of how growth occurs, all of us must agree God is ultimately in control."

Thanks for the acknowledgement, Dr White. I appreciate your response and the heart you have for churches and pastors.

Thank you for that response and clarification. That broad brush can be a pesky thing, can't it?

I do agree with you that flat or declining numbers are always an indicator to watch and can tell us something about the health of a church. But it's never "as simple as that". (That's probably the line that got you in the most trouble.)

However, although you say in your clarification that "this was not a denigration of smaller churches" and "it's not about size", you don't address your words in point #4, which were about size. In that point, you specifically referenced small churches as unfriendly and stated "that's why they're small". You didn't say "that's why some churches are declining", or "that's why they're not growing". You very clearly made it about size. And it is denigrating, even though I don't believe you intended it to be so.

I'm a busy pastor and a blogger too, so I know how easy it is to misstate things, but this idea that "small = unfriendly" or "small = unhealthy" is stated far too often by church growth proponents and it causes a lot of discouragement for faithful, hard-working pastors of healthy small churches.

I was made aware of this post because it was forwarded to me by some of the small church pastors I work with, accompanied by comments from them including, “here we go again”, “why do church-growth people keep doing this to us?” and “maybe it is time to quit.” I feel compelled to step up for them.

When I scanned through your bullet points I couldn’t understand what their problem was. I agree that all five of these are myths. Then I looked closer. My small church pastor friends and I have a big disagreement with how you explain two of them.

First, in point #1 you state “If a church isn’t growing numerically, it’s dying. It’s as simple as that.” It’s not even close to as simple as that. And it’s a slap in the face to hundreds of thousands of vibrant, passionate small churches and their leaders. Not to mention more than half the Christians on earth (1 billion people) who attend churches with an attendance under 200 (about 85% of the churches in the world).

Numerical growth is not inevitable for a healthy church. The real-world evidence stubbornly refuses to back up your assertion. Some churches grow numerically without being healthy (although most big churches I know of are healthy), while many healthy churches don’t grow beyond a certain size no matter how healthy they become - for a variety of reasons. And history isn't on your side either. There have been healthy small churches for 2,000 years, but megachurch growth is a very recent phenomenon.

Second, there’s a serious contradiction in point #4. You state “The truth is that size has nothing to do with whether winsome community exists”, and I agree wholeheartedly.

But right before and after that phrase you contradict yourself by saying size does have something to do with it. You accuse small churches of being small because they’re not friendly (“Some of the coldest, most cliquish churches on the planet are small. That’s why they’re small.”) while you assume bigness is evidence of friendliness (“Big churches are often warm, welcoming, friendly and accepting. That’s how they got big. … the larger the church, the more it is reasonable to assume they must be doing something compelling on the relational front.”)

I’m constantly counseling hard-working small church pastors to keep going, loving and reaching out, no matter what size their church is and whatever obstacles they face. I know you didn't intend this, but articles like yours don’t encourage or equip them. It just puts another emotional obstacle in their way. And it makes them feel like failures - again.

I truly don't believe you meant this to be hurtful, but we all need to be more careful about our assumptions and the people who can be hurt by them - especially when they aren't true.

Ron, I've been using Feedly for a while and it's great! It's how I ran cross your post today.

Feedly currently uses Google Reader as their base, but they're switching that over when Google Reader goes away. They promise a seamless transition and I have no reason to doubt it. They've been terrific at communicating this every step of the way to their users.

Church leaders could learn some good lessons on how to do transitions well, from how well Feedly is doing this.

What a fantastic post! Thanks for re-posting it!

Wordpress is the biggest blogging platform in the world. It's used by everyone from amateurs (me) to pros. The best place to start learning about it is Michael Hyatt's video blog "How to Launch a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog in 20 Minutes or Less" at http://michaelhyatt.com/ez-wordpress-setup.html. After that, I recommend WPBeginner.com for all kinds of tips and tricks.

I've experienced them all, Ron. After 20 years in my turnaround church I can tell you it's worth it in the long run. But it does mean staying for the long run. It's a marathon, not a sprint, as you know.