Early Christians Worshipped in Catacombs

To focus on trying to make the Church grow is like searching for happiness: it backfires. The more you try, the less it happens.

To be truly happy, you have to focus not upon yourself, not upon your happiness, but upon others. The more you focus upon loving others and promoting their well-being, the more joy you will have.

Likewise, to “grow the Church”, the Church has to focus not upon that, but upon being faithful to Christ. To focus on “church growth”, isn’t that another, subtle form of the age-old trap of serving the institution instead of the Lord? And the more you try, the less success you will have, because that is perhaps the biggest thing that drives people away in the first place.

Corollary: People *ultimately*, deep down, don’t want their denominations to bow to cultural trends, either, in attempt to “grow the Church”. The secular culture around us is, in the first place, corrupt; and in the second place, exactly what serious-minded people are trying to get away from! They need to be shown an alternative, a better way.

No doubt it’s very frightening, the thought of becoming financially unable to sustain ones institution, of having to surrender precious and historic church buildings, of becoming entirely insignificant to the world around us. But it’s a mistake to panic. We must just concentrate on how to be uncompromisingly faithful to Christ. If we do increase our fidelity to Christ and our understanding of what that means, and if we remain resolute and unbending in this, and provided we are indeed preaching the Gospel and not error (for only the authentic Gospel fulfills the human heart), the Holy Sprit will add to our numbers. It’s His job. Let us trust Him.