Yet even then, the prospect will have a better chance of truly observing Christ in his body if he can witness the members together, involved in the full-fledged motions of their body language. Body language will be of no value at all if it is communicating the wrong message, if the church to which the prospect is invited is functioning as something other than the true body of Christ. If the body is not actually performing under the direction of its head, the visitor is going to be hard put in sensing that it even has a head. And just here we must pick up a caution. The mere fact that a church's body language seems to be working, that people are indeed coming in and joining - this does not necessarily indicate that everything is as it should be.
Body language is, of course, a medium, a means, a method.
Obviously, then, the medium is legitimate only insofar as it subserves its message. So, the goal of evangelistic body language is not simply that people join a church but that, out of a true desire to join the body of Christ, they join a congregation which truly means to function as the body of Christ. Thus, a congregation's growth rate indicates nothing one way or another about the authenticity of its evangelism. Yet, how many people actually do accept the invitation is a matter entirely out of the church's control or responsibility. It is quite possible that some congregation not growing at all may be doing a better and more faithful job of evangelization than one growing by leaps and bounds.