Is Stability a Virtue of Growth?

     WE know that stability in the home is a key factor in raising healthy children, ie: healthy mentally & emotionally.  Nobody would ever be quoted as saying "divorce is healthy for the family".  I would say that even Liberals and Conservatives can agree on this one point, "stay together at all costs for the sake of the children".  Why do some churches grow and others do not? Are you ready.....nothing fancy here, some churches grow and others do not, because they have "stability".  How can we excuse instability? How can we excuse church splits and numerous Pastoral changes and expect a church to thrive and grow? How do children react to divorce? How do families fair where there has been a divorce, how do children react to the "step dad" coming in to the home and being told that this is going to be their new "father"?  These dynamics do not play out well in the nuclear family and neither do these dynamics play out in the House of God.  You will find that the churches that are growing, the churches that are thriving are the churches that have not split and the churches that have had the same Pastor for 25 + years.
     A church should not fall under condemnation that has been through a church split or Pastoral change(s) or both.  It should rather pat itself on the back that it has even survived.  Stability is what a church needs. Just like a child needs to know that Dad isn't gonig anywhere, then children can thrive. The moment children begin to hear murmuring, fighting and rumors that dad might leave, problems begin to erupt at home and at school. It will not be long before the shool is calling home and reporting that little Johnnie is acting up at school lately.
     Pastors are human and they like everyone else can fall in to the temptation, that "the grass is greener on the other side".  They become frustrated and disallusioned with their congregations and begin to look for the first opportunity to run, rather than stay and work things through. Churches are left behind as Pastors chase "greener pastures" only to find out that the grass is not greener on the other side and sometimes it is worse and they wish they had stayed, stuck it through and practiced what they had preached to their congregations.  Thomas Reiner in his book "Breakout Churches" studied this thoughroughly and concluded that churches that experienced "breakout growth" were not the churches who brought in a charismatic replacement Pastor but churches where the Pastor made a decision to stay, contend and press through the dry season, contend for the latter rain and in most situations where churches were stagnant in growth, but the Pastor stayed, prayed and forged through, those churches experienced,...eventually, breakout growth.
     Churches need stability, stability = health and health equals GROWTH.  A healthy church is a growing church, growth is simply a by-product of health.  An unstable church becomes unhealthy and it doesn't matter what kind of programs you try to inject into it, it will not grow, it will implode unless something changes.  Pastors cannot simply call every opportunity that comes their way as "an open door from God".  Not every door that opens is of God and Pastor's just like regular Christians will be tempted and tested and must pass those tests.  No doubt God does called seasoned Pastors in to the Mission Fields, but this is not the reason for the instability in churches across America, it is more the sad state of affairs of Pastors commiting adultery, Pastor's abadoning their churches for a better , self serving opportunity, it is Pastors quiting on their churches, it is Pastor's trying to climb up the Corporoate Ladder (so to speak). 
     Is stability a virtue of growth?  OF COURSE IT IS!  And this virtue, cannot be looked over as insignificant, not for a moment, when we truly want to ponder, why do some churhes grow and others don't. This is one of the great VIRTUES of the family and church dynamic, there is no substitute for stability when it comes to the family, whether that be at home or at church, there is no substitute!