The church, we are told, is shrinking. Statistics suggest that overall American church membership is declining, sometimes drastically. In most of our congregations, we see the decline. There are fewer people in the pews and fewer people participating. In most congregations, this becomes painfully obvious once a year when leaders begin to prepare the next year's budget and nominate the next year's officers. Financial support of the church lags behind the expenses of the church, creating pressure to cut programs, cut outreach giving, or even cut staff time or positions. There never seem to be many new options for officer position, forcing people to keep serving again and again... and again, and sometimes requiring people to serve in multiple capacities to keep programs going. In the season of planning, it is easy to lament that our church is too small. If we just had a few more people and more reliable financial giving, things would be easier ...