Analyzing Factors Inhibiting the Growth of the Church According to the Apostles and Their Relevance to the Challenges of the Church Today

Abstract

Church growth is a phenomenon that is very commonly discussed by people, especially in the Christian world. Often church growth is seen from the quantity (the number of congregations growing rapidly and many) without regard to the quality of the congregation. Although the Bible does not specifically talk about church growth, the principle of church growth is understood in the words of Jesus "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it", (Matt. 16:18), the church can live and grow even though the number of membership / attendance do not change. According to Rick Warren, healthy church growth is multi-dimensional growth, namely a church that grows closer to each other through fellowship, grows more earnestly through discipleship, and grows stronger through worship (Waren, 2019). He further said that the growth of the church is the result of a healthy natural where the preaching of the Bible and the mission carried out are balanced. In the church there are factors that inhibit church growth, namely: quantitative factors, qualitative factors, organic factors, historical trauma factors, theological misunderstanding factors, religious factors. For this reason, the Church must experience changes in dealing with any situation and influence the world. The church can not only rotate in one place. The church must make a difficult change, namely by preaching the gospel of salvation to those in need, in order to be saved. The church must make new breakthroughs in an increasingly changing world.