Tag: buildings

  • Discovering the secrets to church growth… in the Bible!

    My favorite verse in the Bible is Genesis 50:20. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.“

    But my favorite book of the Bible is Acts. Acts is what happens when Jesus finally unleashes the hounds. Peppered through the Gospel narrative is a desire by some disciples to overthrow the government and usher in the new millennium. Acts documents that while the people wanted a full-frontal-assault to destroy the enemies of God, God’s Son unleashed a counter-insurgency of grace, the forgiveness of sins, and the binding of people together in love.

    In Acts, Jesus takes Genesis 50:20 and widens the application from me and you as individuals, to entire cities, people groups, and nations!

    In a way Jesus re-writes Genesis 50:20 with his very life, “Satan intended to destroy us by pitting us against one another, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

    I’ve read Acts upwards of 100 times. I’ve read commentary after commentary on the Luke-Acts narrative. I love how Luke puts things in order. It unleashes my strategic, creative mind. For me, it is full of AHA moments. Even this morning, as I read a big chunk of the narrative again, I’m in awe of how effective they were.

    Sitting back and looking at the Luke-Acts books as a whole it makes me hypothesize. Perhaps the reason the Holy Spirit wanted Luke to put the Gospel narrative in sequential order might be so that future generations could pick up on the patterns/agendas/strategies that the Apostles implemented to completely obliterate the strongest empire the world has ever seen without using a single army?

    If so, that’s a pretty cool strategy.

    Man conquers the body; Jesus conquers the heart

    The modern church movement in America largely depends on a single strategy morphed into a thousand different variations. It’s a Field of Dreams strategy: “If you build it, they will come.” A program, a good preacher, a building, on and on.

    The weakness with that strategy is that it’s resource dependent. If you don’t have a great program manager you are sunk. You you can’t afford a great building you are sunk. If you don’t have a great preacher you are sunk.

    And it all somehow flows back to money. As much as we hate that it’s about money, money lubricates the gears of the modern church machine.

    The last 5 years, with the economy crashing down and churches re-thinking everything, has begged the question: Without money, what would church look like?

    That’s actually the strategy we see employed in Acts.

    Read it for yourself. In one sitting, right now, read Acts 17-20. Come back when you’ve read it. I’ll wait.

    (more…)

  • 5 Excuses For a Lack of Church Growth

    Photo by Mr. Tom Lillis IV via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Here are things that I hear people use as growth limiters when they talk about the vision and day-to-day action of reaching a community with the Gospel.

    1. Budgets – I would do x, y, or z if I had more. More often people talk about too much money in the church being allocated for one ministry while the thing they think will really reach people is under-funded.
    2. Buildings – Either a ministry has too much building so they need to have programs that justify the building or a ministry has not enough/no building and they use that as an excuse to not do something.
    3. Boards – The board is asking too many questions. Or the board doesn’t care. Or the board cares about the wrong things. Or the board doesn’t support your vision.
    4. Butts – We don’t have enough people. Or, more likely, we don’t have the right people. Or maybe too many of the wrong people. But I never hear someone complain of having too many people, in general.
    5. Boundaries – Some congregations are limited by physical boundaries while others are limited because they have no boundaries.

    All of these are just excuses.

    All of these imply that the spread of the Gospel in your community is somehow tied to the growth of your fiefdom.

    All of these are just as much asset as they are liability.

    All of these imply that church growth is about the organization and not the individuals leaning into their walk with Jesus.

    All of these imply that its our job to grow the church and lead people to Jesus and not the other way around.

    This I know to be true.

    When you love your neighbors, when you meet practical needs, when you speak the truth in love, and when you lay aside your aspirations for the aspirations God has for your community… nothing can stop the spread of the Gospel message. It is too powerful.

  • Build Something Endearing