TITLE: What Makes a Great Church, part 1
TEXT: Acts 2:42
THEME: Church growth. Health, evangelise
P.S. Rick Warren states, and I agree, that the key issue for churches in the 21st Century will be church health, not growth. Because when a congregation is healthy it will grow.
INTRODUCTION:
We all want to see the church grow in numbers and spiritually. It is God’s will for the church to grow spiritually as well as numerically. In Acts 2:42, we read of a vibrant body of believers that was unified in purpose(2:44); The Lord Jesus was magnified (2:47a) and the result was the church multiplied( 2:47b). It had a powerful witness among non-believers too. Miracles and the exercise of spiritual gifts were the norm. It is easy to see why the church grew so quickly and consistently.
W.Wiersbe: The Christians you meet in the book of Acts were not content to meet once a week for ‘services as usual’. They met daily (2:46z) they cared daily (6:1); won souls daily (2:47); searched the scriptures daily (17:11) and increased in number daily (16:5). Their Christian faith was a day to day reality not a once a week routine.
Why was the early church so dynamic in comparison to the church of 2002? To understand the reason why the early church was so dynamic, you need to ask the question, “what drives the church?’ If you were to look up the word “drive in a dictionary, you would find this definition,
“To guide, control, or direct.” When you drive a car, it means that you guide, control and direct that vehicle towards its intended destination. When you drive a nail, you guide, control, and direct it into a piece of wood. (R.Warren)
Every person, business, institution, government, and every church is driven by something. Behind every church there is a guiding force, behind everything that happens. It is probably unspoken. It has never been voted on at a congregational business meeting. But it is there every aspect of church life. Rick Warren has outlined 7 forces which can drive a church.(Purpose Driven church, p.77)
1. Churches driven by tradition:
Illustration: A little girl asked her mother, ““Mommy, why do you cut the ends off the meat before you cook it?”” The girl’’s mother told her that she thought it added to the flavor by allowing the meat to better absorb the spices, but perhaps she should ask her grandmother since she always did it that way. So the little girl finds her grandmother and asks, ““Grandma, why do you and Mommy cut the ends of the meat off before you cook it?”” Her grandmother thought a moment and answered, ““I think it allows the meat to stay tender because it soaks up the juices better, but why don’’t you ask your Nana, after all, I learned from her and she always did it that way.”” The little girl is getting a little frustrated, but climbs up in her great-grandmother’’s lap and asks, ““Nana, why do you cut the ends off the meat before you cook it?”” Nana answered, ““I don’’t know why these women do it, I did it because my pot wasn’’t big enough.””...
Tradition driven churches have as their favourite theme, “We’ve never done it that way before.” Their favourite hymn is, “I shall not be, I shall not be moved”. The goal of the tradition driven church is to perpetuate the past. Change is seen as the enemy to spiritual growth and stagnation is interpreted as stability. The truth is, the church is in constant change every day. A church that is not moving forward is dead! We need to ask ourselves, how are we moving with the change?
2. Churches driven by personality:
It might be a pastor who has a long tenure is I much loved by his congregation. It could be a church member/leader who everyone looks too for final decision making. The focus of the church is on a person. What does he/she want? The problem is with this kind of church, the agenda is determined by the needs, aspirations and insecurities of the leader or leaders rather than by Gods will or the needs of the people.
3. Churches driven by finances:
churches that are driven by finances have one question on the agenda of every board meeting, “How much will it cost?’
Rather than finances dictating the ministry and direction a church should go, the greater issue is what does God want the church to be? The bottom line for ministry is not how much did we save, but how many people were saved? That cannot be measured on a balance sheet.
4. Churches driven by Programs:
When programs are the driving force, the focus is upon maintaining and sustaining programs of the church. Rarely does anyone ask how many people are being changed and helped. The emphasis is how many workers do we have/need? A great deal of ministry burnout often occurs in this kind of church.
5. Churches driven by buildings:
This can be a twofold affect. Churches entering large building projects tend to subtly divert their attention and resources away from people to paying off the mortgage. Buildings can become an object of prestige and power. In one city I was pastor, a church was debating whether or not to build a large, mega church complex. After all the arguments were given the treasurer stood up to give the ‘real’ reason for building a new church edifice. “There is a mega church in the west end of the city, so we need a mega church in the east end.”
But the other side is also dangerous. Churches that are small and have limited space can fall into the trap of letting the smallness of their building set the limit for future growth. Whether we are large or small, buildings are to serve the community not the other way around.
6. Churches driven by Events:
For some churches, the only goal is to keep people busy. Their weekly bulletins look more like Readers Digest, they are so packed full of activities. There is a lot of activity going on, but a little in the way of productivity. The goal is to fill the pews, not necessarily minister to people.
A German soldier was wounded. He was ordered to go to the military hospital for treatment. When he arrived at the large and imposing building, he saw two doors, one marked, "For the slightly wounded," and the other, "For the seriously wounded."
He entered through the first door and found himself going down a long hall. At the end of it were two more doors, one marked, "For officer" and the other, "For non-officers." He entered through the latter and found himself going down another long hall. At the end of it were two more doors, one marked, "For party members" and the other, "For non-party members." He took the second door, and when he opened it he found himself out on the street.
When the soldier returned home, his mother asked him, "How did you get along at the hospital?"
"Well, Mother," he replied, "to tell the truth, the people there didn’’t do anything for me, but you ought to see the tremendous organization they have!"
The soldier’’s comment describes many churches in our day: really organized, but accomplishing little.
7. Churches driven by seekers:
The catch phrase in churches today is the need to be seeker sensitive. All ministry is targeted towards the unchurched. While me must be sensitive to the needs of hurts, and interests of seekers, and while our mission is to evangelize the lost, we cannot allow seekers to control the overall agenda of the ministry of the church.
P.S. Rick Warren states, and I agree, that the key issue for churches in the 21st Century will be church health, not growth. Because when a congregation is healthy it will grow. God wants his church to grow, and to the extent that we are healthy, to that extent we will grow naturally.
Colossians 2:19 (TMNT)
We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
The New Testament says a lot about the health of the church. Consider just a few verses:
““As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing...”” Eph. 4:16b (NLT)
““The focus of my letter wasn’t on punishing the offender but on getting you
to take responsibility for the health of the church.”” 2 Cor. 2:9 (Message)
““You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and
enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other...””
James 3:18 (Message)
Church health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they’’re healthy. You don’’t have to make them grow –– it’’s just natural for living organisms. When your children were born, and after you found out the gender, colour of eyes and shape of the nose of your new baby, what was the number one thing that you asked or thought about your little new born?- IS IT HEALTHY???!!! Does it have ten fingers and toes, Is it breathing properly? A healthy baby will grow to be a healthy adult.
As a parent, I didn’’t have to force my three children to grow. They naturally grew up. As long as I removed the hindrances, such as poor nutrition or an unsafe environment, their growth was automatic. (Warren)
The same principle is true for the church. Since the church is a living organism, it’’s natural for it to grow if it’’s healthy. The church is a Body, not a business - an organism, not an organization. It’’s alive. If a church is not growing, it is dying.
What then is the secret of church health?
In a word, it’’s balance!
Your body has nine different systems (circulatory, respiratory, digestive, skeletal, etc.). When these systems are all in balance, it produces health. But when your body gets out of balance, we call that ““disease.”” Likewise when the Body of Christ becomes unbalanced, disease occurs. Health and growth can only occur when everything is brought into balance.
Over the next several weeks we are going to look at the qualities that make a healthy church. Each one is equally important and essential for the body to function properly. If one or more qualities are overemphasized then the body becomes imbalanced, and is prone for disease. What then are the qualities which make for a healthy church?
1. A healthy church begins with passion for God .: “They devoted themselves... to the apostles doctrine”(2:42)
Often our English translation fails to convey the emotive meaning behind a word that the original language offers. The word devoted, carries with it the sense of passion. It carries with it the meaning to ‘steadfastly continue with...”
Passion is the life source of our existence. Without passion, ministry becomes mechanical. Without passion, worship is dead liturgy. Without passion Bible teaching is dead orthodoxy. The first church was hungry for God’s Word. They had to grow. The lapped it up like a thirsty puppy on a hot day. 1 Peter 2:2. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.
A church that has passion is a church where "Discouraged folks cheer up, dishonest folks fees up, sour folks sweeten up, closed folk, open up, gossipers shut up, conflicted folks make up, sleeping folks wake up, lukewarm folk, fire up, dry bones shake up, and pew potatoes stand up! But most of all, Christ the Savior of the entire world is lifted up."...(Davon Huss)
2. A Healthy Church will walk humbly in the Presence of God (2:43)
The Bible says that A sense of reverential fear and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were performed...”
I’m afraid that the church in N.America has it backwards. We advertise the signs, wonders and promote the healing evangelist and miracles. We then strut our spiritual feathers showing off our spiritual pride.
The Bible says that the believers were well aware of who they were. They walked in humility before God and God performed the miraculous. They did not need to advertise or promote the presence of God. The presence and power of God followed them as they walked in humility before the people.
3. A Healthy church will be united in its purpose: This is how the Amplified version translates verse46, “And day after day they regularly assembled in the temple with UNITED PURPOSE.”
We can see in our national headlines the power of unity to fulfill a common goal. Each of us will never forget what happened September 11, 2001. Out of that terrible day we saw the United States and much of the world join together in unity. President George W. Bush had the support of the nation as he led the nation into the war against the terrorist who murdered so many innocent Americans. Let’’s Role! Became the battle cry of a nation. It doesn’t matter where they are from. What nationality they were born or how much money is in the bank. The nation has a united purpose.
So it is to be with the church. We are to be united in our purpose. Our purpose as a church is found in Jesus commission to his disciples,
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?(Matt.28:19)
4. A Healthy church will make the needs of people their first priority (2:45)
Chuck Swindoll notes that the “Church is a reaching body. The church is a body that does not keep its hands to itself. In Acts 2:43-46 there is a growing momentum. There was love. There was acceptance. There was vulnerability, compassion, caring, winsomeness and giving. Needs were obviously being met. In light of all that we should not be surprised to read how the Lord honoured their concern for others,(Swindoll, p.55)
praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Lord let it happen in Chesterville at NPC!!!!!!!!!!
RESOURCES
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, Zindervan1995
Charles Swindoll, The Bride, Zondervan. 1994
Vines Dictionary of New Testament Words, Eerdmans Publishing
Youngs Ananlytical concordance, Eerdmans Opublishing
The Amplified Bible, Zondervan. 1965
Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary. Victor Books. 1989
Rick Warren, building Healthy Churches, article. Pastors.com
