The Initiation of Church Growth

By Robb Brunansky

Published February 3, 2026

If a biblically minded church is to grow, it must meet some basic requirements. There are some non-negotiables that must be present in any church for it to grow.

The requirement Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 is extremely simple: A growing church is filled with growing Christians. For a church to grow, the people in the church must be growing in faith. There cannot be true church growth apart from the growth of the people in the congregation. The problem in Corinth preventing real growth was that Christians were not growing in their faith.

How, then, can we be a growing church of growing Christians? We must first understand the initiation of growth.

It is important to realize where spiritual growth originates. In the first two verses of the chapter, Paul looks back on his experience in Corinth, when he originally evangelized and established the church, recognizing these believers were spiritual infants at that time.

Paul, here, makes the point that spiritual growth commences at conversion. God initiates the process of growing in Christ the moment we are saved. Followers of Christ are not designed to be saved and then wait for growth. Sadly, that is often the result for believers because of the failures of many churches to build up the body and disciple new Christians. Spiritual growth is not just something for the spiritually elite or for those who have been Christians for some time; spiritual growth is always to start immediately upon conversion.

Spiritual infancy is marked by a couple traits.

Newer believers just starting the process of spiritual growth need to be treated as men of flesh and infants in Christ (verse 1).

Spiritual men are Christians who know how to live life directed by the desires of the Spirit and who gain victory over the desires of the flesh. Men of flesh are Christians who have not learned how to walk by the Spirit or to kill the desires of the flesh, typically because they are new believers who must be taught.

Lest we have any confusion, let’s be clear that the moment Christians are saved, we receive the Holy Spirit. All believers receive a new heart, and our old nature is crucified with Christ and no longer defines us. However, this side of heaven, we remain in sinful bodies of flesh. We must, then, learn how to battle the flesh and to overcome our remaining sinful desires.

All Christians know too well that our sinful desires do not disappear just because we are saved. We learn to walk by the Spirit and deal with the flesh as we mature and grow in Christ. The new believer, though, is still somewhat accustomed to the old life, and so he must learn how to walk in the Spirit and put to death the desires of the flesh. This is why when the Corinthians were first saved, Paul showed them how to go from living lives determined by the desires of the flesh to the desires of the Spirit.

All new believers are faced with the reality of growth. Baby Christians are not instantly made holy in a practical sense, but they must be taught how to walk by the Spirit – just as a human baby learns how to utilize his limbs. Paul understood that new believers must learn to walk by the Spirit over time, and so should we.

Many churches, however, fail in reaching unbelievers with the gospel and discipling new Christians because their leaders lack the patience necessary for this arduous process. There are a lot of leaders who think people should achieve automatic maturity if they have the Spirit within them. However, we should realize that new believers are infants in Christ and just understanding how to overcome the flesh, and that these fledgling Christians will stumble around during this formative time in their salvation experience.

When I was studying at The Master’s Seminary, I was young and rather impatient with people I deemed less spiritually mature than myself. I’ll never forget a professor telling me, “Never despise the process you went through when you see it in someone else.” Spiritual growth begins at conversion, and new converts cannot be treated like spiritual adults because they are infants in Christ.

As Paul writes, spiritual infants, beginning the process of growth, need milk. They are not yet ready for solid food. This image has caused no small amount of controversy. In some places in the New Testament, such as 1 Peter 2:2, God’s entire word is compared to milk we desire like newborn babies. In other New Testament passages, we find a contrast between milk as the basics of the Christian faith, and solid food as the more advanced truths of the Christian faith.

So, what is Paul’s meaning when he says that “I gave you milk to drink…”?

Paul is likely contrasting his various levels of teaching, which depended on the spiritual maturity of the audience. When Paul spoke with unbelievers, he focused on the gospel at the most basic level, addressing sin, righteousness, and the coming judgment. However, when Paul was teaching mature believers, he expounded on more advanced topics of theology.

Jesus Himself set this example with His disciples. In John 16:12, Jesus told the disciples He had much more to say to them, but they weren’t ready for that knowledge then – and the Spirit would teach them later. Paul, following Jesus’ lead, recognized different stages of spiritual maturity demand varying depths of content.

When spiritual growth begins, most new Christians are not familiar with the basics of their faith and need to be systematically taught the fundamentals. We must never look down on someone who does not understand a finer point of theology or complex doctrines. As Paul says, the newer believer is not able to receive the meat. It’s not that the new Christian is stubbornly resisting profound truths any more than a baby is resisting eating a sirloin; it’s that the ability to consume it has not yet been realized.

For a growing church to be filled with growing Christians, it must welcome people from all over the place in their spiritual understanding of God’s Word, and it must go to the members who have the least knowledge and help them understand biblical truth to progress from milk to meat. Furthermore, it must take those who need meat and feed them! A healthy church must be growing at every level of salvation and maturity. No one should be left behind either because they know too little or because they know enough.

As we consider the initiation of growth, we should practice patience with people through this process. This passage shows the Corinthians had not grown past infancy, and Paul is now exposing them. Here’s the interesting thing about this interaction: scholars conclude about five years have passed since these people were saved. For several years, Paul was patient with the Corinthians, praying and caring for them, and speaking with other believers about his concerns.

This timeline is instructive for us because patience is absolutely necessary if we would be a growing church. Not endless patience, though – but patience in terms of years. Note, too, that Paul is not talking about tolerating blatant sin in the church, but about discipling people so they learn how to walk by the Spirit and grasp the central truths of the faith.

Growth as a church is a process because growth as Christians is a process. Praise the Lord that He has patience with us, giving us the privilege to help others around us with this journey.