A.      There are two types of growth within a local church: spiritual and numerical.

                                                              1.      Spiritual growth is the internal growth that a church experiences as individual Christians become more mature and draw closer to one another and to God through faith, love, and unity.  This is the type of growth described in Ephesians 4:11-16.

                                                              2.      Numerical growth is simply the increase in the number of members in a local church.

B.       Typically, members of the church understand why the church needs to grow spiritually.