Criticism
Critics from other Christian groups suggest the movement is "only about numbers", "slick" and "success" oriented.
Apologists respond that most advocates have a real concern for the salvation of the individuals represented by the numbers. Some Church Growth groups distance themselves from the "showbiz" approach of megachurches and believe these may be counterproductive.
Willow Creek Community Church recently conducted a major survey that shows heavy involvement in "seeker sensitive" programs and activities contributed to church growth but did not necessarily translate into spiritual growth and maturity.
Read more about this topic: Church Growth
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.”
—Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)