Ready, Set, Grow!
Acts 2:41-47
Woodlawn Baptist Church
September 12, 2004
(This message was taken from Dr. Paul Powell’s book "The Nuts & Bolts of Church Growth" and personalized to fit our congregation)
Introduction
Today I want to take a quick break from our series in Esther and spend the day, both this morning and tonight, speaking on the subject of church growth and evangelism. The thoughts I want to share with you are not original with me. In fact, they are as old as the Lord’s churches are, and as you will see, the things I am going to share with you concerning church growth are not new-fangled marketing strategies, but time-proven, God-pleasing principles straight from His Word that, regardless of the age in which they are practiced, will prove to enable a church to grow both in spirit and in number.
Turn with me in your Bibles to Acts 2:41-47, and let’s read the account of the growth of the Jerusalem church on the day of Pentecost.
“Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
What makes a church grow? What is it that separates those churches that are vibrant and growing from those that are not? There is of course, no one answer to the question. One of the most common myths that I hear about church growth that really bothers me to hear people say is that if a church is growing, they must also be compromising the Word of God. Certainly there are churches which do such things, but for anyone to say such a thing is either misinformed or is only trying to justify the fact that his or her own church is not growing. Not all churches that are growing are doing anything wrong – it may be that they are doing what they do right.
What makes a church grow? Is it location? Certainly location is a factor, but we can drive around this afternoon and see in the same neighborhood churches that are growing and others that are not. It has been said that location is like talent. John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach from UCLA once said, “Nobody can win without talent. But not everyone can win with talent.” Our men’s Olympic basketball team this year was a good example. Location is important, but not all churches with a great location are growing.
Rather than trying to pick out the things that are not important, let me give you six marks of a growing church. You write these down, and then I want you to take an inward look today to see whether you as a member of this church are contributing to the health of our body by making these marks a central part of all we do. So what are they? What are the six marks of a growing church?
A Sweet Spirit
Of all the things I am going to share with you today, the single most important factor in church growth, humanly speaking, is the spirit of our people. There exists in our church a great spirit of love, joy, friendliness, and lately a spirit of excitement.
I believe that you love the Lord and this church. I know that you are proud of it, loyal to it, and happy to be here. Many of you honestly believe that this is the greatest church in town. There are those among you who believe that we can and will do anything that we set out to do by the Lord’s leading. And do you know what? I think that you are right.
Listen, you can have a preacher with walls of degrees, a large budget to work with, pretty facilities, and on and on you could go, but if a church is cold and indifferent, people will not want to come; and if they do, they usually will not come back. Many of you have said that you like a small church and the small church atmosphere. I do too! And no matter how much we grow, we can maintain that small church atmosphere if we will work at it and simply be a people who love one another. We need to go out of our way to make people feel welcome, like we care about them. Every guest of our church needs to feel loved and accepted, no matter how different they may be. We live in a cold world, and people are drawn by the warmth of Christian love.
There are some things we can do to keep a sweet spirit present in our services. Again, jot these down:
We should never try to impress people with how smart, holy, or dignified we are. We are a family here, a church family, and no matter how much planning or preparation may go into a service or event, a spirit of informality and friendliness needs to permeate everything we do.
Our worship services need to be happy experiences. They ought to be more like celebrations than funerals. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be serious or sober-minded. It doesn’t mean that we should have a lack of reverence – simply that we act like we enjoy being in God’s house.
Our music needs to be alive and triumphant. The music we sing sets the tone for every service. We can’t build a church on music, but we can’t build a growing church without it.
We need to be willing to be spontaneous. We don’t have to do the same things the same ways every Sunday. Spontaneity is a great source of freedom in church work. When we can feel free to change things up, to insert a little humor, and to relax a little, we are going to find that it doesn’t detract from worship, but can often add to it.
We need to be sensitive to the various people groups in each service. Sometimes people my age can forget that not everyone in our church doesn’t have young children. Some of you are guilty of forgetting that young married couples have special needs. What about our widows? Our singles? Our divorcees? Some people like these can go through an entire week and never be touched by another person, physically or emotionally. Identify who these people are and express your love for them.
Allow your spirit of love and excitement to spill over into your personal life. I am thinking of a man in our church who loves to tell people about his church. I’ve heard him say before that he attends the best church in Grayson County, and he believes it. When we will be a people who are excited about our church and are quick to tell others about it and invite them to it, we will be a church that is growing.
So what am I talking about? I’m talking about us building a church with a great reputation. I’m talking about us having such a sweet spirit here that when people get together around our community they are talking about Woodlawn Baptist Church and the great people that attend there. If you’ll look closely at our passage in Acts, you’ll notice a short phrase in verse 47 that really says a lot. After listing all the things they were doing, Luke says that the church in Jerusalem “had favor with all the people.” In other words, they had a great reputation.
Bible Centered
Not only is a sweet spirit an absolute necessity, we must be a church that is Bible centered in all we do. If there is one theme that runs throughout our text, it is the Word of God. “They that gladly receive his word…” “They continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine…” The Bible must be maintained by every member as God’s absolute authority in our lives. We must believe that it is the inspired Word of God. It must be preached in the pulpit, taught in every classroom, believed in the pew, and lived in the street.
I believe that when we honor the Word of God with sound preaching and teaching; when we will be faithful to “declare the whole counsel of God;” when we will unashamedly stand on the truths found in its pages and demand that people live by them (in a spirit of love), then people will be drawn to it and find it a refreshing source of inspiration for their lives.
Whether you realize it or not, there are many churches that are abandoning the Bible as the center of their ministries, but we must not allow it to happen here. I practice preaching and teaching through books of the Bible. Most people will never read their Bibles, let alone study them, so we are going to practice a habit of studying through those books. Preaching in this manner will force me to deal with some things that I would normally shy away from. It also allows me to deal with some subjects that are not so pleasant for you to hear. I may not always be able to keep up with or deal with every social issue that comes along, but I believe that a church that is grounded in the Word of God will be a church that knows what to do with the various social issues that come along.
We may not attract everyone that comes along. In our entertainment driven society, there will be those who are not interested in hearing the Word of God, but I am confident that people today are weary of all the religious talk going on. Let’s give it to them plain and simple (because that’s all I know), and trust that the God of the Word knows what He’s doing when He asks us to be faithful to declare it, trusting that the message is not going out in vain.
Service and Selection
As we continue to grow, one thing we are going to have to be sensitive to is the need for variety in both service and selection. Whether we like it or not, Sunday School and Sunday morning worship are no longer enough to attract and keep people coming. Now some of you may not like hearing that. In fact, I have heard people say that we ought to just offer what we offer and then expect people to accept it. If they don’t, then we’re not the right church for them. I’ve even said it before, but you should notice in these verses that there was a wide variety of options for these people. Options don’t have to be long-term. Just because we offer variety doesn’t mean that we have to lock ourselves into it from now on.
While the message we preach will never change, the need for variety is going to be a constant factor for us. Some want youth ministry. With a growing Senior population in America we should be thinking about how to reach it. As we grow the Lord is going to send people who are interested in a widening variety of programs, and rather than asking why these people don’t get involved in the few things that are already going on, we must ask ourselves whether the Lord has sent them because He wants us to broaden our base for growth.
As we grow our music ministry should expand. We could develop some new ministries, such as a recreation ministry, a retreat ministry, a childhood ministry, and so on. What about single’s ministries? Ministries that minister to divorced adults? Home Bible studies and groups that just get together to hang out. There is no end to the possibilities. The difficult thing is knowing how fast to run with something new, because while we are still relatively small, we run the risk of burning out the people who are participating in so many different things. So while you may be thinking about something that interests you, remember that there is a time element that we must be sensitive to.
Going After People
Visitation and outreach must have a primary place in our church, and generally speaking they do not right now. Visitation should be carried on by our staff, by you as individuals, through small groups, by special teams of people, and especially through our Sunday School.
I accept full responsibility for not setting the example that I should have been in the area of visitation and outreach, and putting this message together reminded me that it was an area of my ministry that I have let fall by the wayside. As I begin to strengthen this area, I want to ask you to not only pray for me, but join me in getting out and reaching people for Christ. If we are going to be a growing church, we cannot wait for people to find us, we must go out and find them.
Ministry and Missions
I would be doing our church an injustice if I failed to mention how important the dynamic of ministry and missions is to our growth. We invest heavily in both local and foreign missions. Our total expenditures for last year came out to just over $100,000. We spent another $30,000 just on mission work.
Through your Faith Promise giving and the various ministries that we are developing and working, the Great Commission is being carried out in our church. Though we can strengthen our work here at home, we are striving to get the gospel out to the four corners of the world through the work of our missionaries and mission points.
While we’re talking about growth, let’s remember that growth is not our primary concern. Our number one concern should be missions and ministry for Christ. Growth comes as a by-product of these. The more we do these things the more we grow ourselves. The more we are obedient to the Word of God, the more we grow spiritually, the more we will grow numerically.
The Dynamic of Prayer
The last mark of a growing church is going to be prayer. Let us put everything in its place: love, the Bible, our ministries and so forth, but if we fail to be a people of prayer we are destined to fail. Prayer is our admission of absolute dependence on God for all our resources and all our needs. We ought to be working as though everything depends on us, but praying as though everything depends on God.
Remember the ice storm that we had two years ago? Some of you were without power for several days. I heard the story about a lady in Tyler who sat in her living room by a kerosene lamp. She looked up at a beautiful and expensive chandelier and said to her husband, “That’s about the most useless thing I’ve ever seen.”
Just think about how little value all our appliances have with no electricity. It’s the same with our churches. All we have and all we do is of little value unless the power of God is here, and unless we are a people of prayer it will not be here. “Without me you can do nothing.”
Conclusion
Is ours a growing church? As I close this morning, I want you to look with me one more time to our passage in Acts. If you wrote the things down that I’ve given you, you’ll be able to look down through there and find every one of them mentioned, but there is one last thing that I want you to see in verse 47. The Bible says that “the Lord added to the church…”
Ultimately, it is up to the Lord whether or not we grow, but I am confident of this: that if we will practice the things I gave you, God will add to our church. A church that loves people, keeps the Bible central, is missions and ministry minded, and is a praying church is a church that is pleasing God. It is a church that is growing in the Lord, and as a church grows in the Lord, the Lord is going to lead more and more people to it so they too might grow in their relationships with Him.
Is the Lord leading you today into a personal relationship with Him? Is He leading you to be a part of this fellowship of believers through baptism or by moving your membership here from another church of like faith and practice?
Perhaps today God has been speaking to you and letting you know that you have been a hindrance in His work through unfaithfulness, or perhaps because of sin in your life. Today God is inviting you to make that right with Him. Is God leading you to take on some role of leadership? To get more involved? To join some place of ministry? You follow as He leads you this morning.
