Rediscovering Church - Part 3

Church is about belonging to a family. Church is about gathering together in person. Today, I want you to see church is about growing.

Church is about growing

When we think about growing and church we automatically think about getting bigger numerically. That’s kind of in the DNA of Southern Baptist churches and most others of any denomination. Many churches like ours calculate their kingdom success according to how many baptisms and additions they have each year.

Church growth, as in numbers, was the catchword when I entered the ministry almost thirty years ago. We were all enamored with the megachurches. The church growth gurus told us if we just practiced certain steps any church could see an explosion in baptisms and additions.

Pastors of these highly successful churches would preach at conferences and conventions back in the day and they’d say something like this, “A majority of our churches are plateaued or declining. 10,000 churches didn’t baptize a single soul last year. If just on of those pastors led somebody to Jesus… If each deacon… If each Sunday school teacher… and on.” And then they’d give an example of how their church running 25 in worship caught fire and then three years later they had baptized 700 people and grown to a thousand in worship. As if it were just that simple. And as if that was the ultimate goal.

One day it dawned on me. Every single pastor who preached a message like that was in a densely populated area. You could set up and a pulpit in a parking lot and have a few hundred people just by accident. Most churches are in sparsely populated and/or declining areas. I also realized that it if you are an aging church in a declining community and you just maintain, that’s growth (as people die out and the community shrinks).

I’ve also come to realize biblical church growth is about more than just numbers.

To understand this, let’s go back to a text in Acts we’ve already covered on our In-Between Years series. It’s one of those special snapshots Luke gives of what the church was like. This one was taken not long after the church was born.

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.  Acts 2:42–47 (ESV)

The applications of this text are endless. That’s what I love about God’s Word. Luke wrote this but behind him, giving guidance was the Holy Spirit.

One take on this text that has impacted the way I see church is how this snapshot shows us why we’re here, why we, as a local church exist. Why we belong to a local church and why we gather as a local church. It’s something a pastor in California highlighted in a best selling book, The Purpose Driven Church. It’s also something I teach in my 20/20 class.

Luke’s snapshot of the early church teaches us that we belong and gather to grow, but in five ways not just one. The first is this:

We are here to grow warmer through fellowship.

We know this because Luke writes, “They devoted themselves to the fellowship” and “all who believed were together and had all things in common” and “day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” If that doesn’t describe fellowship in a big way, I don’t know what does.

It was a fellowship of mind, heart, and soul.

So as they gathered together they grew warmer in love and devotion towards one another. This will tie into the final message in this mini-series so I’ll move on the next.

We are here to grow deeper through discipleship.

We know this because Luke writes, “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.”

Back then it was firsthand. The apostles who were the first disciples chosen by Jesus were physically there teaching them the Word and ways of God. You could actually go to a Bible study led by Peter or James or John or Matthew or Mark! How cool would that be? 

Today, we can’t devote ourselves to the apostles teaching like that, but we have the next best thing: the NT they authored and the OT they drew their teachings from. Now it’s through the preaching and teaching ministries of the church that we devote ourselves to their teaching. That’s where I come in. That’s where our LifeView leaders come in.

Some folks might say, I can do one even better. Forget all that gathering together stuff. I can sit right here in front of my TV and watch the best preachers of the gospel ever. I can pipe the teachings of the best Bible teachers right into my living room. Why would I want to listen to Pastor Brad in person when I can watch Charles Stanley or Join MacArthur or David Jeremiah or Tim Keller on TV?

I hear you. I mean I’d rather hear Tim Keller preach over me any day. But listen to the words of Collin Hansen & Jonathan Leeman, in their book, Rediscovering Church (from which I’ve adapted this series)…

When you rediscover church, you’ll likely also encounter the debate between recorded and live, in-person sermons. Years ago, I had a conversation with an especially gifted preacher. In another life, he would have been a successful stand-up comedian. In fact, he studied comedians in order to learn how to engage with an audience while preaching. He also understood biblical and theological concepts with depth and could explain them with creativity to skeptical crowds. His church had expanded to several locations across the region and even the country by broadcasting his recorded sermons rather than featuring local, in-person preachers. I’ll never forget his rationale. He said it didn’t make sense to give the people a B-preacher when they could have an A preacher like himself. If his goal was to amass a large personal following, I couldn’t argue with him.

But as I reflected later, I realized that his argument proved too much. In the scenario he suggested, he wasn’t competing only against his junior pastors and interns. He was competing against every other preacher, dead or alive. Why not play recordings of an A+ preacher, such as Billy Graham? What if churches across the English-speaking world hired an actor to perform the best of Charles Spurgeon? Maybe we could compile a tournament bracket of the kind used for college basketball playoffs and ask Christians to vote, round by round, on their favorite preacher until we settled on one orator to rule them all. Then no one would be subject to a B- (or worse) preacher ever again. We’d get only the best—if that’s what God thinks is best for us.

But it’s not. The best preacher for you is the preacher who is faithful to God’s Word. Even better if he’s willing to meet you over coffee or visit you in the hospital. There’s a reason we don’t only read Scripture together in each worship service. Preaching brings the authority of God’s Word to bear, through the mediating personality and experience of the teacher, on a contemporary context with particular local and personal demands. The man I just mentioned might in fact be a better preacher than yours, but your preacher knows your church better. And that counts for a lot when it comes to applying the Bible to you and your congregation.

In the end, preaching isn’t just about transmitting information… hearing the sermon isn’t just about you and your personal walk with Jesus. It’s also about shaping a heavenly culture and building a heavenly city in your very church. It’s about shaping a life together.

Two things happen with live, in-person teaching that can’t be replicated on a podcast with a pastor you’ll never know personally. First, the congregation and the preacher together experience preaching as a communal event in time and space. Yes, there’s value in applying a sermon alone in our devotional reflections. But there’s even more value in applying it to us together as a people. Together we bring the sermon to life in how we treat one another throughout the week. Also, remember, the preacher isn’t finally “over” us. He’s one of us, and he participates with us in being shaped together by God’s Word as a new city. The sermon casts a vision from God’s Word for a particular people in a particular place, as they have covenanted together to obey God and love one another.[1]

Here’s number three.

We are here to grow stronger through worship

We know this because Luke wrote, “They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers” and they were “praising God and having favor with all the people.”

The breaking of bread. This refers particularly to a coming together the first day of the week (Sunday) to sing hymns and celebrate what we call the Lord’s Supper. They shared a meal in someone’s home where everyone brought what they could (kind of like a potluck!). That’s the origin of what most churches do today. We come together on the first day of the week for worship and the Lord’s Supper, though we do it every quarter.

Now worship isn’t just something we do at church on Sunday. At its core it’s loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We live that out individually every day out and about, but we also live it out corporately when we come together. When we worship together as a church it magnifies the transforming power of God’s presence making us stronger in a way we could never know on our own.

Next and number four…

We are here to grow broader through ministry

We know this because Luke wrote, “they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” When people had needs, they met them in the name of Jesus. We see this especially later on when they formed a special ministry just to widows. Just like Jesus, they met a physical need to make way for meeting spiritual needs.

When we come together and minister outside our four walls as well as in, it broadens our influence and ability to impact the community for God’s kingdom.

Last but not least is the kind of growth I talked about at the beginning of my message…

We are here to grow larger through evangelism

We know this because Luke wrote, “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” The end result of their worshipping, their fellowshipping, their discipling, and their ministering was the salvation of others. Evangelism for them wasn’t a class they took but the natural result of living out their faith. They didn’t go door-to-door asking people if they knew for certain if they died tonight they’d be in heaven. They invited friends and family into their homes seeking to influence them for Jesus. They sought out people in need they could minister to, and in the process opened up the door to share the god news.

Evangelism is what they were about, but it wasn’t what they were all about. Going back to where I started this morning, think about a church that majors only on evangelism. What do you really have? Most of the hundreds baptized come for a while then fade away because they didn’t engage with the church in all the growth areas.

Brothers as sisters, we, as a church, are about belonging, about gathering, and about growing. And we are here to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism. It’s not just one, it’s all of them. As near as I can tell, if you get the first four right growing through evangelism takes care of itself. All of this can’t happen unless we work at it in the power of God’ Spirit together.

By the way, I love how these same truths are found in two of the most famous statements Jesus uttered.

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  Matthew 22:37–40 (ESV)

That’s the great commandment. And then this…

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

From these two statements we get the five ways churches grow put a different way:

Love the Lord passionately - worship.

Love people radically - ministry.

Go and make disciples - evangelism.

Baptizing them - fellowship.

Teaching them to obey - discipleship. 

Conclusion: I’ve talked a bit about my upbringing in this little miniseries. The Toby Rainwater story. The dirt roads of Coosa County. Here’s something I may never have mentioned. In High School I played the trumpet in the Coosa County High School marching band. We performed during half-time at every home game. There’s this picture of me wearing my green uniform and that wonderful hat that looked like a giant white q-tip.

I remember my parent’s asking me to play the national anthem for them once. I did. They had confused looks. It didn’t sound like the national anthem because my part wasn’t the melody, it was the backup. The music that accentuated the melody. This is because I wasn’t all that good at playing the trumpet (spring recital). But when I played my part with the rest of the band, it all came together. 

I tell you this because that’s exactly how it works with church being about growing in all those areas. It takes all of us doing what we’ve been gifted to do in the local church to grow. Some teach, some minister, some lead worship, some foster fellowship, and so on. Your part may not be up front but it’s just as vital as someone who’s part is.

This one message should really be a series all its own. Maybe one day.

As we get ready to close let’s read today’s main text from Acts one more time…

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.  Acts 2:42–47 (ESV)

Do you get the sense of belonging there? Do you get the sense of gathering there? Do you get the sense of growing there?

I can’t close without sharing this because it all begins here…

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Romans 10:13 (ESV)