Will Merging Really Help Further the Kingdom

On claim proponents of our joining the MCUSA have made is that we will be better able to build the Kingdom of God. I've wondered where they get proof of that since it seems that in almost all areas of society we can see examples of bigger not necessarily being better.

If bigger meant an increased capacity to build the Kingdom it seems that the largest religious groups in the country would then have the fastest growth. If I remember correctly (sorry I can't lay my hands on the stat right now) less than half of those top 15 groups are growing at all and are actually declining instead.

I ran across another piece of research concerning merging congregations. It stated that only 9% of merged congregations grew while most declined (average of -5.7%) faster than their denominations. (Carol Grigg, To Merge or Not to Merge: A Study of the Decision of Congregations to Merge (Doctor of Ministry Thesis, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1995), published in 1996 by The Alban Institute, 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1250W, Bethesda, MD 20814-3211, p. 13.) If this is what happens with merging churches shouldn't we be extremely careful about denominations?

The point is there are a lot of statements that are easy to say and seem to make sense. However research often shows that these statements are false. We need to be very careful about what we accept as truth.