Loren Mead, of the ALBAN INSTITUTE, advocated that the local congregation embrace, and work toward, four kinds of growth. These are the four kinds of growth identified by Mead, with my personal comments added:
(1) NUMERICAL GROWTH, as they seek to evangelize large numbers of non-Christians through their life of witness and Gospel proclamation and bring them, by God’s grace, to faith in Jesus Christ;
(2) MATURATIONAL GROWTH, as they grow up into Christ, who is the Head of the body, and become mature disciples of Jesus, who are also His stewards, servants, priests, witnesses, salt, light, and living letters;
(3) ORGANIC GROWTH, as they are connected to each other in relationships that live out the “one another” admonitions of the New Testament, with each believer using his or her gifts for the building up of the body and for the common good;
(4) INCARNATIONAL GROWTH, that wherever they go, and to whomever they come into contact with, they are able to be His ambassadors and living letters, mediating His mind and word and demonstrating His love, concern and compassion for others
Moreover, the growth of His church should be continuous and in equilibrium:
CONTINUOUS…in that the Christian faith, and way of life, is being modeled, taught, and passed on from generation to generation, and to the ends of the earth, so that the peoples of the earth might always know of His salvation;
IN EQUILIBRIUM…for to seek numerical growth without attending to maturational and incarnational growth is to neglect the teaching dimension of Jesus (teaching them to observe all these things that I have commanded you); AND to seek only maturational and organic growth neglects the mission and scope of the Great Commission (to GO and make disciples of all nations); AND without maturational, organic and incarnational growth, the GOING and the TEACHING and the INCORPORATION cannot be effectively put into effect