Finally someone of his stature is willing to say what many in his same position won’t.  Tim Keller is the pastor of a large and fast-growing church located in New York City.  Redeemer Presbyterian Church was founded in 1989 and has since grown to a congregation of 4,500 people.  Christianity Today has called Redeemer, “one of Manhattan’s most vital congregations.”  And through its church planting center, Redeemer has helped start over 100 smaller churches in the New York City metropolitan area. In a 2006 survey of 2,000 American church leaders, Redeemer was named the #16 most influential church in America.  Only 21 years old, Redeemer has become a large, vibrant, growing, and influential church.

This, however, is not the norm.  Most churches in America are much smaller.  As a matter of fact, the average church size in the U.S. is about 100 people.  There are pastors who have faithfully served congregations for 20, 30, even 40 years and have never experienced the kind of growth that Tim Keller has seen at his church in New York.  Granted, it’s New York, but Keller was recently interviewed in World Magazine, and he said something about this amazing growth that resonated with me…and hopefully will resonate with other pastors who are faithfully leading congregations and not seeing the type of growth he has.  Here’s what he said…

We paddled out on our board and a wave came in.  You can do all the same paddling and standing and then if the wave does not come in there is no surfing.  We could have easily come here, done everything that we have done, and have very, very little to show for it.  I know other people who have been every bit as faithful, if not more faithful than me, and do not have anything like the same amount of success.  I do not look at myself as being more effective than them, but I am more successful and therefore blessed, for only reasons that God in His sovereignty would know.

I’m a pastor of a church that regardless of what I and the other leaders are doing, we are not currently seeing any significant numerical growth.  New people come through the front doors, but just as many go out through the back.  We seem to have plateaued, and most of the time, I’m OK with this.  But, there are times when I read about other church growth stories or remember the first church I served at where we went from 300 to 1000 in the course of two years, I begin to wonder what’s wrong with me.  Does a lack of significant numerical growth mean that I’m doing something wrong?  If I were more faithful, more dynamic, more relational, cooler, deeper, better looking (etc), would I then see the church I’m serving grow?  Church growth “experts” might say so, but I will now throw what Tim Keller says into the mix of voices I listen to about church growth.

There definitely is the intangible “wave” that must come in if a church is going to see growth.  At my first church in Dayton, OH we did many of the things then that I’m doing now, and for whatever reason, the church exploded.  On some Sundays, we’d see 40-50 new people, and these people ended up staying.  The church grew so fast that our staff meetings each week were spent just trying to put names with faces.  There were just three of us on staff, and we could barely keep our heads above the water.  It was both exciting and overwhelming.  The wave had come in, but after peaking at 1000 people in the mid 90′s, the church is now back to about 400 people.  The wave has hit elsewhere, and other churches in town are now experiencing massive growth.

So, I’m a pastor of a church of 300 people today, and I love it.  It’s been this number for quite a few years, and most of the time, I don’t worry about numbers.  I love the people God has brought to our fellowship, and I’m honored to serve them as their pastor.  Occasionally though, I get hung up on our lack of explosive growth, but it’s usually only when I begin comparing my church to other bigger, exploding churches or when I read an “expert’s” critical take on why churches like mine aren’t growing.

Tim Keller’s words are encouraging to me.  He’s a man overseeing a church that is experiencing explosive growth, yet he’s willing to say what many in his position won’t say: he’s seeing massive growth right now because the wave has come in for him.  May he remain faithful to the Lord as his church grows in the same way that pastors like me remain faithful when the waters of growth are calm.