“Every few years the church thinks she discovers some silver bullet that is supposed to accomplish what plain preaching, prayer, worship, and discipleship allegedly could not. A new method. A new model. A new strategy. A new expert promising growth if we will only adopt the latest technique or cater to a certain audience.

Yet the history of the church is littered with the graves of forgotten innovations. The gimmicks come and go. The fads rise and fall. The experts sell their books and brands and move on to the next big thing. The church is left to clean up the mess.

What is needed is not another method but repentance. Repentance for our impatience. Repentance for our unbelief. Repentance for imagining that the Holy Spirit needs our marketing department to accomplish His work. Repentance in straying from the plain commands of Scripture regarding how it is that God wants to be worshipped.

The church has always been best served by men who preach, pray, and plod, rather than by the thousand consultants armed with demographic data, growth strategies, and flash. Yet the evangelical mind seems incapable of believing God's ordinary means are actually sufficient.

So do the work. Put in the time. Stick to the fundamentals. Be fervent in prayer. And trust that God will give the increase.” - Pastor Ryan Denton