Every church planter dreams of seeing their church grow. But what if numerical growth isn’t the primary goal Jesus gave us? What if our greatest challenge isn’t planting churches but making disciples who naturally reproduce churches?
There is no doubt that the church growth movement had a significant impact on churches around the world. It really put cultural relevance, excellence in worship services, numerical growth and management principles and practices firmly on the agenda for many churches. In fact many of the large churches in our country today have become large as church growth principles and practices have been applied.
Churches planted during this era generally had growth targets as a major goal. And why not? Who can blame them?
But a question that is increasingly being asked is “are we going to plant a church to make disciples, or will we make disciples to plant a church?
This is what Paul and Barnabas did in Acts 14:21-23. They proclaimed the gospel, made disciples, strengthened and encouraged them in their faith and then appointed elders as a new church was born.
They made disciples to start a church rather than starting a church to make disciples.
Why is this important?
1. Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not plant churches.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m passionate about seeing more churches planted and delighted to see that the number of churches planted in Australia in 2025 was approximately double the number planted in 2021. But I’m also passionate about seeing disciples made.
Where church growth principles and practices come before disciple making principles and practices, we can have numerical growth without seeing disciples made. I explain why this happens in a four minute video you can watch here.
2. Preaching Adds But Disciple Making Multiplies.
Church growth principles focus on the action from the platform, rather than getting everyone involved as disciple makers. When we plant a church hoping to reach and make disciples, the trap that is too easy to fall into is to expect the preacher to win people to faith and to disciple them. And so we come to rely upon numerical addition.
We only have to read as far as the first chapter of the Bible to see that God’s plan has always been to “be fruitful and multiply…” (Genesis 1:21 and 28). In the book of Acts we see that people were added to the church but multiplication soon came into play as the number of disciples multiplied (Acts 6:7).
Both addition and multiplication are important. While the Church Growth Movement helped many churches think intentionally about reaching people, its strongest emphasis tended to be on addition rather than multiplication.
A gifted preacher may see hundreds or even thousands of people come to faith. David Watson in Contagious Disciple Making recounts the slow start he experienced in disciple making. But by the time he wrote about this, around seven million people had come to faith through the disciple making movements that he had started.
3. The Church’s DNA Will be Shaped By What We Do At First.
If the leader of a church plant hasn’t learnt how to make disciples, the church probably won’t be a disciple making church.
The question every prospective church planter (or church leader) should ask is “who have I led to faith and seen become a disciple of Jesus?”. The next questions are “what really is a disciple and how will I make disciples?”.
When we are confident in our affirmative response to these questions, we can then set in play two critical factors that will shape the disciple making capacity of the church that we plant. They are:
- put in place disciple making systems that become widely accepted as part of “how we do church”. This will shape the operating system of the church.
- develop a disciple making culture from day one in the church. You can read about how to do this in the ebook “10 Shifts to Birth Multiplication In Your Church or Plant” (The Right Now Media group study accompanying the ebook will be launched mid-October)
Some final thoughts to consider.
I have heard Bill Coucheour, a friend of mine in the US state that in seeking to make multiplication the norm, we stand on the shoulders of the church growth movement. I love that! It’s acknowledging the important role the church growth movement had to play in many areas, but it’s also acknowledging that the church growth movement wasn’t the final word. It moved us forward but there is more to come.
I like how Peyton Jones in his great book “Disciplology” makes the comment that we all want Acts like church movements but often fail to realise that Jesus spent up to three years making disciples of the 12 and the 72 and the 120 who were to become the human foundations upon which the disciple making and church planting multiplication of Acts was built.
Disciple making doesn’t just happen from the pulpit. In fact little of true disciple making does. Preaching is important but it’s only part of the operating system a healthy church.
I want to encourage and challenge you not to be like the well known leader who ten or so years ago told me that disciple making where we seek to see every believer become a disciple who makes disciples won’t work, so we need to stick to platform ministry. I’d prefer to believe Jesus and seek to make disciples who will make disciples. But to do this we need leaders who are courageous enough to purposely shape culture and implement systems that will see this happen. It will be slower initially but multiplication can lead to exponential growth.
The final word is with Jesus who commanded his disciples in Matthew 28:19 to “… go and make [more] disciples…”
When we do this we will see churches planted as a result.
ps – I’d also encourage you to read and reflect on the wisdom Carey Nieuwhof shares in why the “Cool Church Model” has lost it’s edge. The article then suggests “5 Keys to What Actually Drives Church Growth Now”. There are some great observations in the article that can be keys for both churches and church plants. One thing for certain is that as the world around us changes, we cannot remain as we have been if we want to reach into tomorrow’s culture.
