But first, I would call your attention to the title of this sermon: “More Than Numbers”.  What that means is that I intend to provide a larger context in which to think about church growth, particularly as it applies to this congregation.  I'm not going to talk primarily about why we should increase our membership or how to accomplish that. I'll talk about some different aspects of growth in the church, with particular emphasis on personal growth.  I'm going to talk about four different types of growth that are discussed in a little book, called More Than Numbers: the Ways Churches Grow, written by Loren B. Mead of the Alban Institute.  Then I will discuss how I see those fitting together to make a vital and effective religious community.

    The first type of growth Mead mentions is the obvious: numerical.  This has to do with the number of members, church attendance and size of budget.  Now these things are clearly very important; without a congregation and without money, the church would not exist in any meaningful way.  And in terms of growth, whether or not numbers are increasing, the situation is never static.  People are born, people die, people move in, people move out.  While numbers tell us very little about the inherent value of the church, or what it really means for individuals and the community, they do give an indication of the general overall health of the church.  An ongoing cadre of people sharing their gifts of time and money is a sign that something is going on that people value.

    At the individual, personal level, numerical growth corresponds to things like chronological age, height, weight and income.  Once again, these things are essential, and they give us a way of monitoring our general physical and economic health, but they really only represent the underlying matrix upon which the truly meaningful aspects of our lives are overlaid: our values and our dreams.  Of course it's possible to make physical, material things the very center of our lives.  In fact, much advertising seems to encourage us to focus entirely on working out, looking young, acquiring the right car, clothes, toys.
Likewise a church, or any other organization may get carried away with an overemphasis on the merely numeric aspects of their existence. I was involved with one congregation that built a new building, and five years later, nearly all their time and energy was spent in worrying about how to pay for it.  The physical plant took on so much importance that there was room for little else.  Some people call that an “edifice complex.” But if there isn’t more than that to church life, then what's the point?

    The second type of growth Mead talks about is maturational growth, which he defines as "the ability of a congregation to challenge, support and encourage each one of its members to grow in the maturity of their faith, to deepen their spiritual roots, and to broaden their religious imaginations."  In other words, one of the important ways that growth occurs in a church is within its individual members.  Now I don't know about you, but that has been probably the most important factor in my involvement in the church over the past thirteen years or so.

    I came to the Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church in Adelphi, Maryland in 1988, having spent many years in a fairly isolated existence.  I was well-educated, happily married, and had a decent job. But my life was virtually devoid of social interaction, largely by choice because I suffered from severe shyness and lack of self-confidence.  When I was younger, in school and in the military, I had often been thrust into leadership positions, but never willingly, and it was always torture.  I was just totally intimidated by other people, and so I avoided them.  Deep down I did have a desire to change, and I did make occasional attempts, but with little success.  For example I once signed up for an assertiveness training course, but I flunked out.  I found myself unable to complete the first assignment, which was simply to initiate conversations with three strangers over the course of a week.

    That was who I was when I walked through the doors of the Paint Branch Church.  But within five years, I was serving every Sunday as a greeter, starting conversations with strangers every week and actually enjoying it.  By that time I had been on numerous committees, chaired the membership committee, served on the Board of Trustees for three years, including a year as Chair, and I had taught adult education and helped put on several worship services.  Since that time, I have continued to grow in self-confidence.  I was able to pursue a path toward ministry that took me through seminary and has brought me here as your professional religious, spiritual leader.  Please believe me when I tell you that this journey has been as much a leap into the unknown, and as thorough a transformation as that encountered by Patty Caterpillar when she ventured into her cocoon.
 
    So what was the source of this personal transformation?  Of course it took a great deal of resolve and hard work on my part, but I give a large part of the credit to the church.  And what was it about the church that made all this possible?  It's right there in Mead's definition of maturational growth: "the ability of a congregation to challenge, support and encourage each one of its members."  To challenge you is to push you to stretch beyond your own current limits, and perhaps to help you recognize when you are just spreading green gravel.  The support and encouragement provide the nurturing environment required for that to happen.  For me, the church community provided a place where I could take chances, knowing that people were pulling for me and cheering me on.  If I occasionally stumbled, I didn't face laughter, derision or pity, but rather compassion and encouragement to try again.  The one big difference between my experience in church and my previous attempts to change myself was that this time I was not alone.  I truly believe that the church, if it is living up to its role, provides a wonderfully nourishing medium for personal growth and development, theologically, spiritually and otherwise.  I'm sure many of you have your own stories of growth and transformation, some maybe less dramatic, some maybe more.  I would be interested in hearing some of them during the congregational response later.

    The third type of growth in the church is what Mead calls organic growth.  Quoting from him once more: "Organic growth is about the task of building the community, fashioning the organizational structures, developing the practices and processes that result in a dependable, stable network of human relationships in which we can grow and from which we can make a difference."  It's that sense of community that provides the context conducive to personal growth and development.  'Community' is a term that is bandied about a lot, but what is it really?  One of the best definitions I've found says that
"Community is a dynamic whole that emerges when a group of people:

                participate in common practice;
                depend upon one another;
                make decisions together;
                identify themselves as part of something larger
                     than the sum of their individual relationships;
                and commit themselves for the long term to their
                      own, one another's and the group's well-being."

    I think that sums it up quite well.  But one thing about community is that it doesn't just arise or continue spontaneously and with no conscious effort.  It requires both commitment on the part of individual members, and appropriate organizational structures.  Look at our own fellowship.  There is the obvious organizational structure of Board and committees that does the business required to perpetuate the community as an ongoing institution.  But there are other structures equally important for maintaining the community. There is the Sunday service that provides a weekly point of contact and opportunity for participation in common practice.  More specifically, the sharing of joys and sorrows provides a special opportunity to share with each other in a way that affirms our shared identity as a community.  There are many other structures as well, both explicit and implicit, both formal and informal, that serve to hold this community together.

    I think that the important thing, in terms of organic growth, is to be aware of the structures that do exist and to be able to evaluate their effectiveness, and to be adaptable enough to  evolve new structures as they are needed to accommodate changes in circumstances.  The danger is that once you achieve the status of a healthy, supportive community, you may tend to lock yourself into a rigid set of organizational structures.  There's a sense of "we've got a good thing here; let's not mess with it."  There is some wisdom in this attitude, but it is important to continually evaluate how good a thing you've got, what it is that's making it good, and to be open to considering what might make it even better.
 
    The fourth and final type of growth I want to mention is what Mead calls incarnational.  This has to do with the relationship of the church to the larger world.  It has to do with what some would call the 'output' of the church.  One way such output has been described is as "an enfleshment of the principles and faith of the congregation in the structures of the community" (this meaning the greater community beyond the walls of the church).  There are different ways that the church can have an impact on the society around it.  One is through a civic orientation, in which individual members are encouraged to participate in civic and political life as responsible citizens, and thus to help in shaping a society that cares for human needs.  Another approach is through an activist orientation, in which the church may operate as a counterculture, protesting injustices and seeking redress of wrongs by confronting cultural and political institutions.  Another way of breaking down the work of the church in the world is into acts of compassion and acts of justice.  Through acts of compassion, the afflicted are comforted as their immediate needs are addressed. Through acts of justice, the comfortable are afflicted and structures of society that are the sources of injustice are confronted and questioned.  I think the important point here is that the church must look and act beyond its own walls if it is to be more than a self-indulgent club of people patting each other on the back telling each other how great they are.
 
    In Mead's discussion of the various types of growth, he treats them as more or less independent, but equally important aspects of church life.  However, his categorization fits quite well with a vision I have of the church that is somewhat more, shall we say, organic.  First of all, I see the numeric world of membership rolls, budgets, staff and facilities as providing the underlying substrate upon which all else is built.  But then, at the center of everything I see the organic aspect of the church; that is, the community.  The main reason I see the community aspect at the center is because I see it as providing a link between the individual members and the world.  The community has the internal function of supporting and nurturing its members and their personal growth.  And it has the external function of exporting its values and principles into society in an attempt to build a better world.  As I quoted from Mead earlier, it produces "a dependable stable network of human relationships in which we can grow, and from which we can make a difference."

    Breaking the church down into this kind of functional description may be a little bit misleading, for it tends to gloss over the basic fact that all of these functions involve the same group of people, the members of the church community.  Different individuals, at different times, will take on different roles in this whole picture; sometimes nurturing, sometimes being nurtured; sometimes teaching, sometimes learning; sometimes challenging, sometimes being challenged.

    The whole point is that we are a group of people who have come together as a community greater than the sum of its parts.  We’ve done so in order to help each other to grow and to gather the energy and the courage necessary to go out, face the world, and change it for the better.

    So I would encourage each of you to find the parts you can play in this whole equation.  Look for opportunities to pursue your own growth and development, and to share your own gifts and talents.  They are here.  There are Adult Religious Education classes and other small-group experiences.  There are opportunities for actions of compassion and justice in the larger community.  After the service today you will have the opportunity to learn about the various committees that make up the organic structure of this church and keep it operating.  Check them out and see how you might be able to help.
And when you find a path that fosters your growth, share your experiences and your growth with others, challenging and encouraging them to stretch themselves as you have been stretched.  Keep that ball rolling and growth will be an ongoing characteristic of this congregation.

    I consider myself pro-growth in terms of congregational size.  But I think it would be a mistake to focus solely on bringing new people through the door.  We must continue to fine tune our organizational structures.  We must continue to provide opportunities for personal growth and development.  We must continue to engage real-life issues in the larger world.  And the fact is, if you build it they will come.  That is, if you build a community that fosters meaning and purpose, that provides an environment of both comfort and challenge, you will continue to grow in every sense of the word.

    So may it be.