The church is holy ground. The Spirit moves when and where He wills. Church growth can never be distilled into simple principles, formulas, or platitudes. When God chooses to fulfill the voice of the prophets, our sons and daughters begin to prophesy, and the church begins to dream dreams. As the wind of the Spirit blows where He wills, the church is added todaily.

I would never attempt to encapsulate the Spirit of God or peddle what is holy. We cannot reduce church growth to principles in the same way our colleagues in the business school can delineate the art of marketing under the rubric of "four Ps." Despite this real distinction, the church must never be so mystical that it ignores the practical. Even in the earliest days of the community of faithas the Spirit was poured forthmatters of poor management threatened to thwart the movement of God's people. Luke explains, "Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose" (Acts 6:1). We all remember the "table service dispute" between the Hellenists and the Hebraists. The solution was the enlisting, training, and organizing of seven helpers for a new food distribution system to Grecian widows. In some complex way the uniting of the mystery of the movement of the Spirit with sound management methods has always been a part of effective church growth.

We have all witnessed a congregation in its infancy thrive on one part Spirit and one part enthusiasm. This same congregation, nonetheless, soon discovers it will have to embrace also the "institutional facets" of church that were once deemed as left behind at its traditional sponsoring church. Sooner or later, we have to be pragmatic about managing our churches in a fashion that invites growth.