Many years ago, I remember somebody at our church saying – on a week that had felt particularly encouraging and we received a number of new visitors making the room feel relatively full – ‘God is doing something’. I don’t doubt that he was doing something. I don’t doubt that he was building something. But what he was doing and what he was building may not have been what we might expect.

Some while after, that same person who averred that God was doing something was one of a number of people who left the church. We went through something of a harrowing winnowing period and our numbers dropped. Nobody seemed to saying ‘God is doing something’ during that period. But I don’t doubt that God was doing something. I don’t doubt he was building something. But what he was doing and what he was building might not have been what we expected.

Many years on, our church has grown. We have even planted another church in another needy town. We have welcomed in many new believers and grown both through (legitimate) transfer growth and by conversion. The Lord has, in a number of different ways, prospered the ministry to some degree. We now have people who not only attend, but are genuinely seeking to grow up to maturity in the Lord through his Word. The Lord still seems to be doing something and still seems to be building something. What he has done and built so far might not be what any of us expected.

The lesson I draw from this is a pretty simple one. God is doing/building something is the kind of thing people say when they can see, usually numerically, that the Lord has brought people into the church. Often, not even when they have become members, but just when there are more bums on seats. There is a belief that God is at work when people show up.

But God is always at work and is always building his church. Sometimes, he builds his church by bringing more people in. Other times, he builds his church by taking some people out. Often, he neither adds nor takes away, but builds those who are there up qualitatively. When you build stuff, sometimes you add new bricks for new walls to expand your building, other times you have to take stuff out in order to build something better and at other times still you neither take anything out nor add anything new, but are effectively making changes to what already exists. But this is all part of building work.

I am convinced that God is always building his church. He is always at work, doing something, whether that appears to be adding bricks to his temple through numerical growth, whether that is taking walls down and removing the rubble that is no longer fit for purpose or whether that is strengthening what already exists. God is always at work and is always building his church. The church is not only being built when people come, but similarly when people leave or when what exists is strengthened. God is always working.

The key thing for us, then, is to not place too much store by what appears to be happening numerically. Sometimes God will add to our number and build his church that way. Sometimes God will deplete our numbers in order to strengthen our foundations so that we can grow later. Sometimes God will keep our numbers static and simply strengthen what already exists through his Word. Sometimes God may cause our number to fall so severely that we can’t credibly continue as a local church so that, whatever is left, goes to strengthen other churches in a different corner of the kingdom. But in all of these ways, God continues to do something, continues to build his church and continues to ensure that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

It is far too easy to live and die on what we see. It is far too easy to become encouraged or discouraged by apparent numbers and ignore the building work the Lord is doing either by taking some away from us or in keeping our numbers static. In the end, numbers are not the primary indicator of whether God is at work. He is always working, continuing to build his church, and we can rest entirely in that.