“The church building is half-full, we’re not doing too bad”, pessimists say. Optimists think: “The building is half-empty, so there’s lots of room to grow!” At the beginning of this year there were conflicts in the church we planted in Bangkok. About half of the members left. “It’s like a tsunami”, one of the remaining members told me. “You look around, and all of a sudden this one is gone and that one is gone.” Experiences like these in a church are always sad and dishonour God’s name. Yet after half a year I also see the other side of the medal.

By now, the church building is as full as it was before the problems. And now it is not various groups of Christians who don’t really like each other, but lots of new people who are new Christians or interested in the faith. The energy expended in keeping things together, is now spent in evangelism. The feeling ‘our church is full’ changed into ‘it’s so empty, who could we invite to join us?’ There are more new people than ever before! It is all still very new and vulnerable. But it is an encouraging new start- though in the end the success of a church of course it not dependent on numbers of worshipers, but on faithfulness to God’s Word and on lives of people being changed through the power of the Holy Spirit.

New people result in new problems. Many of the newcomers are poor, and do hardly contribute to the offering. The church only has money for activities, not to pay staff. Therefore Kew, the church worker, has given up her salary. But she continues serving God and serving the church, maybe even more than before. Commitment like that, I am convinced, will not remain unblessed.

PS: By the way, I hope churches will start to realize more and more that the size of their sanctuary is not all that relevant. For it’s always possible to have 8 consecutive worship services or so in one Sunday.