A Growing Church

Some pictures are coming later. This is for my next newsletter ...

Becoming a Growing Church

The mission of our church is “Making Disciples of Jesus Christ by Reaching, Growing and Serving”. Last week I began a three week series on looking at our mission statement as a church and what it means for us personally to reach out to people with the love of Christ. In this issue I will talk about becoming a growing church. A “Growing” church can mean many things to many people; growing in attendance, growing in buildings, growing in finances. As a church we have defined growing as growing deeper in our relationships with God and one another.

A number of years ago a storm came through my neighborhood and uprooted some trees and did damage to homes. What was surprising were some trees that I thought had deep root systems that had come up and other trees looked like nothing ever happened. Life has a way of bringing storms our way and the aftermath of those storms reveal how well rooted we are. We find in the book of Acts the early church was committed to each other and to growing deeper with God. Luke writes in Acts 2:42 that, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." He could have said they were committed to deepening themselves in the truth of God’s Word and committed to one another. Can that be said of you? Do you have a hunger for God and knowing his Word every day? Are spiritual disciplines that vital to your daily life? My hope as a pastor is that your desire for God increases. If you find yourself in a season of life when that desire for God is lacking or non-existent, pray for the desire to have the desire for God. God works with us where we are, not where we are not.

Secondly, when was the last time you had someone from the church over to your house for a social engagement or just to have coffee? God’s desire for us is not just to go to church but to be the church to one another. Luke says they met daily together. At a recent conference I heard a speaker share a story of a guy in his church who was leaving. This guy had been part of a gang and he told the pastor he was leaving church because he thought the church was going to be like a Christian gang. He thought the church would be family like his former gang and he was disappointed. In his gang they were committed to each other and had his back. That wasn’t his experience with church. God’s desire for us is to be that kind of group in the church. It is more than people just knowing your name and your occupation. It is to have soul-friends, where each person knows one another’s needs. These friends not only encourage you but hold you accountable in walking with God. Do you have Christian brothers or sisters like that? You can only have these kind of relationships in small groups. If you are in a group, I encourage you to be vulnerable and take initiative in becoming that kind of Christian. It takes some work but I know many who would testify that it’s worth it.

That is what it means to be a growing church, not just in numbers on Sundays but in love for God and for one another that is practically lived out week by week.