In The Coming of the Third Church (Orbis, 1976), Walbert Bühlmann makes an interesting connection between church growth and maturity …
“growth in maturity in a minority Church brings, as a consequence, numerical increase while growth in maturity in a majority Church leads in most cases to a numerical diminution, which is a healthy readjustment in which many nominal Christians discover that following the Lord exacts a price which they are not ready to pay.” (147)
The minority church , of course, is located in those places traditionally called ‘the mission field’, and the majority church is in Europe and America. The growth and maturity for both churches is found in the high price of following Jesus. In the case of the minority church where discrimination and persecution is taking place, this price brings numerical growth. For the majority church, the high price of discipleship produces health, as it trims away nominalism. In both cases, costly discipleship is the key for growth and maturity.