Ken Smith <> wrote in message .

> >The idea that a church must hire a man who has many gifts and that his

> >success is measured by how many “laymen” can be persuaded to attend his

> >activities is unbiblical.

>

> Do you and Dudley realy believe that we shouldn’t be judging the

> health of a church by the number of bums on seats, Rowland?

I can’t speak for Dudley, but yes, I would say ‘no’… Aiming for church _growth_ is to aim for something which, if achieved, invariably stokes up our hubris, and if we fail, leads to despair…

Aim for health: if growth results, good. If not, like Jeremiah, carry on anyway… >

> Please coem to Queensland, and say this out loudly and often.

> The Baptist Union of Queensland recently adopted a slogan (?) that we

> wanted 75% of our churches to be in a healthy state within the next

> ten years.

I come regularly to Queensland to address issues like this. (I’m addressing an Anglican clergy conference there next year…)

And watch for an article on the subject in the next issue of GRID (World Vision’s free leadership letter: phone them and ask to be put on their mailing-list)…

> This is laudable, but when people started asking what do we mean by

> “healthy” divisions started to appear. Among all the rhetoric it was

> hard to find any suggestion that much of our present effort is not

> much more than doing the same old things under a different name.

>

> I’d better stop before I get too wound up.

>

> [rest deleted]

>

> Ken Smith

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Shalom! Rowland Croucher