In the southeastern part of the US, where we live, there are many churches.  It seems there are churches on every corner.  Many of those churches are made up of people who seem to be perfectly satisfied to go week after week with empty pews, instead of being filled with people.  Many churches go an entire year without baptizing a single convert.  That raises the question: what is wrong, and what are we doing here?

This is a follow-up to the previous article about why churches don’t grow.  There is nothing wrong with the gospel, and one couldn’t even imagine that the Lord would not want His house to be full.  It really comes down to the attitude of the people who make up the church.

Many pastors have found out too late that when the representatives of the congregation told them, prior to their becoming pastor of the church, that they wanted to grow, they did want to grow, but only up to a certain point.  Many people want to grow to the upper level of their comfort zone, but no more.

Jesus said that new wine could not be put into old bottles.  The bottles were actually wine skins, and old wine skins had become brittle and would not stretch with the new wine as it would through its process of fermentation.  All too many churches make the mistake of thinking they can take the same organization they had with 50 in Sunday School and just keep on growing.  They can’t.

There are certain “growth cells,” or “growth hurdles” that have to be overcome, and those are overcome by organizing for the next level.  A church with 100 in Sunday School would not be wise to organize for 1,000, but they do need to organize for 150.  It seems, from my observation and education, that breaking 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, etc., in Sunday School are all growth hurdles.

The organization that is necessary is to provide a class structure that puts people together who have the most in common.  For instance, young couples who have children, or , ladies within a fairly close age-range who are widowed.  Those are just two examples.   A class structure that just says, “everybody just go wherever you want to,” sounds good on the surface, and nobody will complain about it, but very few new people will come and join it.

New people feel real uncomfortable with the idea of trying out different classes, before they decide on which one to attend on a regular basis.  They usually feel a certain “obligation” to stay in the one they first visited, and if they find they really don’t have much in common with those folks, they usually just stop coming.

The best organization for Sunday School classes is age-grading.  As the church grows, the range should be narrowed.  A church might start out with a “young couples” class that covers everybody from just married to 35 years old.   In a small church that might only be 3 couples.   As the church grows, it should eventually get to the point that, instead of just having a “young couples” class, there would be “young couples, age 25-30,” and so on.

It is also time proven that the classes that grow fastest are classes that have from 8 to 18 regularly attending people.   That means when a class reaches around 18 people, instead of looking for a larger room, they need to look for another teacher and group of about 8 people to start another class.

The time is passing, and as far as our opportunity goes, the time is short.  We must continually ask the question, “What are we doing here?”