Why It Might Be Good That Your Church Isn’t Growing
April 22, 2026
April 22, 2026
Abstract: Caleb Davis encourages pastors to consider God’s good purposes in not growing their church rather than being discontent with their church’s size. God may be helping a church’s leaders to focus on the flock that is there and equip them to carry out his mission. A season that feels stagnant may be an opportunity for self-reflection, and it should lead to greater dependence on God.
I hadn’t seen him in years. After small talk, he asked the question many pastors dread: “So, how big is your church?” If you pastor a small church, you know the feelings that come: insecurity, defensiveness, the temptation to exaggerate, and a desire to highlight the strengths of your church.
The average church has sixty people in attendance. But many pastors still feel like failures. They can live in a low-grade state of discontent, watching other churches double or triple in size while theirs feels stuck. They wonder why God hasn’t answered their prayers. Isn’t it a good thing we’re asking God for? Didn’t Jesus promise to build his church, or did he just mean theirs?
Along with spiritual confusion comes practical challenges: thin volunteer teams, tight budgets, limited staff. Small church pastors watch people they love leave for larger churches with more programs and services, creating a revolving door.
I’ve pastored at a megachurch with everything pastors dream of, and now for over a decade I’ve pastored a church of under two hundred people. I’m not against growth. I have longed for it. Prayed for it. Worked for it. But my current church has never seen the overnight growth that some churches experience.
I have hated this. I’ve been discouraged. Disappointed. Confused. And, over time, I have come to thank God for this mercy.
Though it’s good and reasonable to desire growth, I have learned to rejoice in the fact that God has chosen not to grow my church at the speed I once envisioned.
Proverbs says, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Prov. 14:4). Growth brings abundance, but also a messier barn. I learned that lesson in my first job working on a ranch. More horses meant more mouths to feed, more stalls to muck, more wheelbarrows of manure to haul. At times, I wished for only one stall to clean.
Church growth can have a similar effect. Right now, you may have one counseling session, one critical email, one couple walking through infertility. Now multiply that based on how much you want your church to grow. More people can mean more problems, more needs to meet, and more strain.
That doesn’t mean we should fear growth. After all, the abundance of crops is a good thing! We want to see more people discipled. We shouldn’t intentionally try to keep things small so that we have fewer problems. Yet it’s easy to fantasize and miss the realistic picture of growth. The lack of growth may be God’s mercy to help you focus on the flock he has given you right now. Diligently shepherd the sheep God has given you today instead of dreaming about the sheep you wish you had.
I used to pray, “God, bring people to our church.” Then I realized this kind of prayer isn’t really in the Bible. Jesus said the harvest is “plenty”; the problem is that there are few people willing to enter the harvest, which is why we should “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37–38). We are not called to pray that God would send people to our church. We are called to pray that God would send us to them.
Some growing churches can easily become complacent in evangelism. This is particularly the case when much of their growth comes through Google search rankings, visibility, or “transfer growth.”
But I’ve talked to many dying churches that once had full auditoriums, schools for growing young families, and national radio ministries. Some confess that over time they became inward-focused, reliant on past success, and content to preserve their comfort.
A season of stagnation offers an opportunity for a church to examine itself. It forces us to ask: Are we truly engaged with our neighbors, coworkers, and city? Are we showing hospitality, building friendships, and proclaiming the gospel? Do we share God’s heart for our community? Perhaps God is choosing not to give growth until there is a radical reorientation of our hearts to be like Jesus who came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).
When growth stalls, pastors often scramble for solutions: courses, Facebook groups, cohorts, books, consultants, or new and innovative methods. I’m not saying all these things are worthless, but what if God wants to bring us to the end of what our best resources can do? What if he is giving you a fishes-and-loaves season where you bring the limited people, dollars, staff, and resources to him and say, “God, do what only you can do. Glorify yourself.”
He leads us to depend on him not only for his power but also as our true source of joy. Like all trials, God’s purpose is to shape our character, draw us close to him, and build in us greater endurance. It forces us to ask crucial questions: Is my greatest joy in God or in a popular church? Is my righteousness in a number, or is it in Christ? Am I preaching to be faithful to God and love people or to feel better about myself? Am I living faithfully to fulfill the ministry he has given me?
This is an opportunity not to grieve what you lack, but to remember what you already have in Christ.
Numbers rise and fall, whether by thousands or by dozens, but our calling is the same. We worship God, preach the gospel, form community, train and equip members to do the work of ministry, and carry out Christ’s mission.
Your church enjoys the same purpose in Christ’s mission as every other Christian church in the world. And Jesus is just as much the head of your church as he is of the one with the new building. He cares for your church and has purchased it with his blood. He is not withholding any good thing from you.
Pastor, don’t miss the good God has given you by focusing on what he hasn’t yet given. Slow growth is not God’s neglect. It is his goodness.