To grow your church, first grow your own spiritual life- Bishop Carlye Hughes

April 02, 2025 (To read more about what is happening in the diocese click here.)

What churches that grow seem to have in common, says Bishop Hughes, is not chasing church growth – it is their members growing their own spiritual lives. Ironically, these church wind up growing without chasing growth, because what they have is irresistible to the people who visit them. (Time: 6:13.)

Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark. I have been listening to people talk about the level of fear and worry they have about things happening in the United States, but also things happening across the world. And primarily that worry is driven from a sense of kind of not knowing how to face the challenge that’s in front of us right now. All the while, worried even more about the challenge that will arrive tomorrow, that we don’t even know about yet. And for some people, underneath that is a real sense of danger, a loss of personal safety. All of this has been difficult.

I’m aware too, though, as those conversations about worry happen amongst Episcopalians, that there’s an overriding worry that Episcopalians have when we get together, and that is about the decline of the church. That people are so scared about our churches closing, so scared about having so few people sitting in church, and truly, truly worried about that focus on, how do we get more people to come here? How do we get young families? How do we get more people in pews and more people pledging so our church can continue doing its ministry?

And I want to offer you a different way of looking at this, and that is this. I am a lifelong Episcopalian, which means I’m a lifelong Christian. I’ve seen many churches grow. I’ve been in churches that have grown. I’ve led churches that have grown. I’ve also seen churches that cannot seem to get out of their own way and do not grow no matter what they try and do. But I want to talk first about what churches that grow seem to have in common, and it is this. They are not chasing growth. What they are chasing is growth in their own spiritual lives, growth in their faith life. But they’re not chasing the growth of the church.

In these churches, I’m keenly aware, they come together as community and as individuals to put themselves in the presence of God – and sometimes that means worship together, sometimes that means a quiet prayer on their own, or praying with a small group of people – but these are people who put themselves in the presence of God. And another way they put themselves in the presence of God is they study deeply the teachings of Jesus Christ, not just so that they can name them or rattle them off in an argument, but they study the teachings of Jesus so that they can pattern their life after the way Jesus taught the disciples and apostles to pattern their life. To be the kind of person who is always looking to the least around us and serving those who are the least.

I’ve also noticed that in these churches, these two things – regularly putting themselves in the presence of God, and working to learn about Jesus and about His ministry – leads to an awareness, an ability to see, hear and know the wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. These are parishes that are very clear about what God is asking them to do as individuals, and what God is asking them to do as a church.

And it changes everything when someone comes in to visit them, because visitors very often remark on how joyful the church is, that there’s a robustness to the worship, that people are actually singing. They’re not just holding the hymnal and allowing someone else to do the singing, that they are singing. That they are offering their own voice, that the prayers are energetic, and the individual prayers and biddings that come after are often very touching. That these are people who will pray with you, who will ask how you are, and will lay a hand on you and say a prayer for you and then check on you the next week to see how you’re doing. That in these kinds of churches, there is a clear sense – you can almost hear the hovering of the Holy Spirit. There’s a sense of deep peace and knowledge about what the church is doing and its focus in the world and its focus amongst its own community.

These churches have something unique and special that only comes from truly working on their own spiritual lives and sharing their knowledge and love of God with other people. Ironically, without chasing growth, they wind up growing because what they have is irresistible to people who come and visit them.

I want to offer this to you in the coming, the last few weeks and days of Lent as we head into Holy Week and Easter, because we know we will have people visiting during those times, people do head back to church, especially in Holy Week and Easter. I want to invite you to do all that you can, to put yourself in the presence of God. Do all that you can with those who you attend church with, to learn about the teachings of Jesus and to pattern your life along that way. I want to invite you, as you sit in church with the beloved members of your community, to be listening to the way the Holy Spirit is moving. And I ask you to trust me, that if you do these things, the joy, the peace, the love and the wisdom that you have will be irresistible. It may grow your church, but it most definitely will bring healing and transformation to the people who surround our churches and who desperately want to know that they are loved by somebody.