“We Don’t Need More Churches” Is Dead Wrong
Every once in a while, a comment pops up online that makes you stop mid-scroll, rub your forehead, and whisper, “Lord, give me patience.”
This one did it for me:
“We don’t need any more churches in this world. We need people attending them.”
I get where the sentiment comes from. It sounds practical. It feels tidy. It plays well in comment sections.
And it’s also painfully untrue.
Not untrue in a “let me dunk on a stranger for being wrong on the internet” kind of way.
Untrue in a Bible, mission, and actual-reality-on-the-ground kind of way.
So instead of firing off a snarky reply, which doesn’t accomplish beans in someone else’s comment section, I figured I’d write something better. Something pastors, planters, everyday believers, and even skeptics can read and say, “Okay… that actually makes sense.”
Here are 13 reasons the statement “We don’t need any more churches” collapses the second you hold it up to Scripture, demographics, or basic pastoral experience.
1. Attendance never was the Great Commission metric.
Jesus didn’t tell us to “increase weekly foot traffic.” He told us to make disciples who obey His teachings. A church can be packed to the rafters and still be spiritually thin, inward-turned, and plateaued. Disciple-making requires proximity, intentionality, and relationships; not just bodies in a room.
2. Large numbers of communities are still under-churched.
Drive through any fast-growing corridor, and you’ll see new rooftops everywhere but no corresponding gospel presence. Many communities have church buildings, but not necessarily biblically faithful, disciple-making congregations. Geography may be dotted with steeples, while the actual witness is nearly absent.
3. Shepherding capacity is a real, human limitation.
Even the most gifted pastors and healthiest churches can effectively care for only so many souls. Pastoral load, leadership bandwidth, relational capacity, and systems all hit limits. Creating more churches multiplies shepherds, not just services, and the body desperately needs more shepherds.
4. “Just go to an existing church” assumes everyone can.
People don’t live in idealized comment-section worlds. They work Sunday shifts. They lack reliable transportation. They’re caring for elderly parents. They have special-needs children. Proximity and accessibility shape faithfulness. A church five minutes away can be the difference between spiritual family and spiritual isolation.
5. Not every existing church is a faithful one.
Some churches drift; slowly, quietly, sometimes tragically. They become museums to past movements or chapels for personal preferences. When biblical preaching fades, when mission disappears, when accountability evaporates, new works aren’t competition; they’re mercy.
6. Different cultures and subcultures need contextual witness.
Paul understood this instinctively. Ministry among fishermen wasn’t the same as ministry among philosophers. Today, language, ethnicity, socioeconomics, age, and neighborhood culture all shape how the gospel is best communicated. One-size-fits-all congregations rarely fit all.
7. Church plants reach new people at a higher rate.
This is one of the most replicated findings in church research. New works are typically more evangelistic, relationally nimble, and outward-facing. They’re not weighed down by decades of infrastructure, tradition, or preference battles. They wake up asking, “Who isn’t here yet?”
8. More churches doesn’t mean more competition.
The church-growth industrial mindset made people think congregations are competing for market share. The New Testament paints a different picture: many churches in one region, linked by shared mission, mutual support, and sacrificial partnership. More congregations can mean more collaboration when Jesus is their center.
9. Healthy church planting often revitalizes older churches.
When done with humility, new churches don’t drain existing ones; they energize them. They stir prayer. They encourage mentorship. They open doors for shared missions, shared training, and shared ministry for the outcasts of society (widows, orphans, etc.). They remind older congregations what it felt like to dream again.
10. “Just fill the churches we already have” assumes those churches are going.
A full fellowship hall doesn’t mean a church is engaging its neighbors. A new church is often planted precisely because the existing churches, while full, friendly, and sincere, have little meaningful connection with the community around them. New churches often reclaim lost ground.
11. Demographics shift. Buildings don’t.
Towns grow eastward. Housing developments pop up where there once were cow pastures. Populations move from rural to suburban. If the gospel witness stays where it always has been instead of where people now are, we leave whole communities without discipleship presence.
12. Smaller congregations can be healthier for some discipleship journeys.
Some believers don’t grow best in large gatherings. They need a setting where they can be known, prayed for, challenged, and given space to serve. Smaller congregations, especially newer ones, often provide that environment in a way larger churches simply can’t.
13. Church planting raises up new leaders.
Every new church requires pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, kids ministry workers, worship leaders, evangelists, and shepherds who wouldn’t have stepped into those roles otherwise. Planting multiplies leaders. Leaders multiply disciples. Disciples multiply mission.
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So… do we need more churches?
If by “churches” you mean buildings, maybe not.
If by “churches” you mean biblically faithful communities of believers who preach the gospel, make disciples, love their neighbors, raise up leaders, and multiply mission…
Then yes. Absolutely. Yesterday.
The harvest is still plentiful.
The workers are still few.
And the answer has always involved God raising up new communities of faith, not just resuscitating the ones we already have.
This post was first published on The Strategic Outsider, a Substack exploring mission, leadership, and Kingdom growth from the perspective of a Mission Strategist: https://associationmissionstrategist.substack.com/