Read this blog in response to “What if We Made Disciples and Left Church Growth to God?” by Karl Vaters.

Lately, I have been intrigued by the thought that “less is more.” Author and pastor Karl Vater’s article on putting church health ahead of church growth certainly supports this idea. He argues that the church and the world might be in a better place today had we spent our resources on producing healthy, reproducing disciples rather than on our North American obsession with bigger and bigger churches..

Maybe, says Vaters, we should focus our energies on “making disciples who produce healthy churches, no matter what size they are.” I, for one, agree. And I think Jesus would, too.

Everything Jesus did seemed to embrace smallness. When His disciples barred children from taking His precious time, Jesus welcomed them instead. When He commended faith, He chose a tiny mustard seed as its symbol. When He spoke of eternity, it was the narrow, lightly traveled way that led to heaven. Observing those who made gifts to the temple treasuries, He praised the smallest gift as the greatest. Whenever the crowds got too large, He thinned them out with a hard saying (Luke 11:29; Luke 12:1). When His own men sought to be first, He urged them to get to the back of the line. And though He commanded the attention of thousands, He gave intimate time to only a few.

As a communicator, I love great preaching; I could listen to the podcasts of my favorite megachurch preachers all day. But great preaching and big churches alone will never transform the world. That will only happen by making healthy, reproductive disciple-makers who follow Jesus.

Dale Losch joined Crossworld as a disciple-maker in France in 1988, and has served as Crossworld’s president since 2009. He loves to motivate people to use their God-given passions to make disciples wherever life happens. Hear more from Dale.