ATTENDANCE, BUILDINGS AND CASH: The ABC of modern Church growth 

For nearly 20 years, Philip Sunday Gata has superintended over a ministry focused on the evangelization of the peace-loving Gbagyi people. You would be spot on if you described him as a missionary with a particular burden for rural folk in Kaduna, Niger and Nasarawa States and the Federal Capital Territory.

He cut his teeth under the godly tutelage of Emmanuel Egoh Bako of Kafanchan, so as far as ministerial parentage goes; Bako is his father in ministry. It seemed everyone was at peace with that fact until a senior pastor in the ministry asked Gata a curious question, “Sir, who is the father of this ministry?”

I was at a meeting where a cleric personally known to me who had been in the ministry for nearly 4 decades referred to a much younger and less-experienced cleric as “our father in the Lord.”

The only reason a 70-year old parson who has been labouring in the vineyard for nearly half a century would call a much younger colleague of 2-decade experience “daddy” is because the younger man has managed to corral more people to his congregation, is into more expansive construction and has access to more cash.

So there you have it: congregation, construction and cash. These are the trending parameters for success in ministry; the indubitable evidence of God’s favour, and by extension, human recognition. Church growth wonks are all over the place telling those who care and are willing to pay to hear that the irreducible requirements for successful ministry are boosting attendance, erecting bigger, better buildings and securing access to tons of cash. Incidentally, attaining any of the conditions improves the possibility of fulfilling the others.

For instance, having a large, well-appointed building can draw the congregation that can then be milked to no end. And with plenty of money, any building of choice can be acquired to house the burgeoning congregation that will in turn bring in the big bucks.

So head or tail, it is all smiles to the bank! If your ministerial credentials do not feature these critical entries, you may not be able to muster the requisite resources to maintain a robust media presence that enables volubility.

In modern church growth paradigm, visibility and volubility mean being seen and heard by those who matter in the corridors of power: another emerging shortcut to ministerial success.  When state governors call you “daddy” or “mummy” and Mr President can invite you to accompany him on a private pilgrimage to anywhere, you know you have arrived. And trust me, there are very many who are willing to do just about anything to upstage you on the spotlight.

I need to make some clarifications to avoid being wrongly branded. I don’t hate large congregations (mom had eight of us) and I have no beef with sprawling buildings (I trained as an architect to create them).

As a full-blooded Igbo man, I most certainly don’t have problems with lots of cash. If I claim to be averse to publicity, then I must be a hypocrite showing off as a writer. No, I’m neither a weirdo nor an ascetic. I’m just your regular fella who loves life and gets his kicks from fooling around with words. I’m the kind of dude you would have been mighty glad to have as an in-law. But where truth is involved, I’m a fundamentalist. I can be quite an unrepentant militant when it comes to combatting error. I do not claim omniscience or inerrancy.

I’m just a well-taught student who takes his lessons seriously. In guiding me across the gamut of Holy Scriptures, my good teachers highlighted this focal verse:  “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”1 If the Good Book says not to place a person on the basis of possessions, it can only mean that true success in any of life’s numerous endeavours cannot be accounted for by possessions.

And if we agree that congregations, constructed edifices and cash are earthly possessions, having them as a minister of God cannot amount to be being successful. As a king, Solomon David superintended over the vast congregation of Israel. He built one of the most magnificent temples in Jewish history; and was he rich! On the basis of current church growth prescriptions, he should have wound up as one of God’s most successful servants.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Despite starting out with so much promise and being so adequately endowed to excel, Solomon ended quite badly. The church as an institution and Christians as individuals are called to please God. In the final analysis, only he can determine who did his bidding.

In the interim, every action must be guided by what is written. Christians must only emulate those whose lives were, and continue to be patterned after the best of Christian traditions. And here is what my teacher taught me as the ABC of successful Christian life and ministry. Accord: The Church must be united in purpose and motivation. There is no place for private and self-serving agendas.

Baptism: There must be total and uncompromising immersion in the will of God and the power to do what is commanded. Consecration: To be effective, the Church and every Christian must be completely set apart from the world and its polluting influences. I’ll conclude where I started: how my friend Philip Gata responded to his pastor’s intriguing question. As calmly as he could manage, he announced that Emmanuel Egoh Bako of Kafanchan was and would remain the ministry’s spiritual father, but the wider implication of the question wasn’t lost on him.

The subliminal suggestion was to dump the Kafanchan father and adopt another from Abuja with a bigger congregation, more expansive building and certainly richer. And that is one bizarre feature of the modern Church growth paradigm: you can switch fathers in midstream!

1 Luke 12:15 English Standard Version (2011) of the Bible