Consider the town of Peevesvillle, just a little south of where you live. This mid sized country town has several churches and quite a large Christian population. It might be pictured as follows.
But unfortunately, something happens in Church A and people move to churches B, C and D. Soon after this a new church moves into town and draws people from churches B, C and D. The faithful few at church A refuse to move on. Thus we now have the following situation, represented below: (note that the arrows represent movement of people)
Church E is jumping up and down praising God because of it’s growth. But notice the overall effect on the community of Peevesville. The number of Christians in the town has remained constant. It hasn’t increased at all. The distribution of Christians has changed but nothing else has. Church E has grown at the expense of the other churches. Neither the Kingdom of God or the local community has benefitted.
This is the overall effect of church hopping or shopping. The large contingent in every town that moves churches regularly adds nothing to the local community or to the Kingdom of God. Real church growth is measured in conversions - people coming to Christ in repentance and faith. Why not set your church /cell a goal of seeing ___ number of people converted each month. Why not do real kingdom work and share the gospel so that more and more people are added to the Kingdom of God, rather than just shuffled around.
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