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Bigger
or Healthy
This
morning as I pondered a statement about when Summit’s first
building was being built. How 265 people took a step of faith to
build the first building, and then when it was complete 600
showed up. Now ten years later we struggle with meeting our
budget and having space for our attendees.
The church experienced a rapid growth,
needing to double our original educational space within 5 years;
it ended up tripled in six years, along with growing to multiple
worship services. All this while gifts and tithing reached a
plateau. I have heard it said that we have 2400 members; if we
do we have an attendance of less than 50%.
Yes, a church should desire
growth, but the primary focus should be the HEALTH of the body,
not the BREADTH of the body. Yet many churches are more
concerned with numerical expanse, not spiritual depth. Lest we
forget Jesus’ teaching on the “wheat and tares,” an
increase in numbers cannot always be equated with an increase in
health (Matthew
13; 24,30, 36,43). Not all growth is healthy. It can be
downright cancerous.
Used with permission: Biblical Pastors
on the Verge of Extinction, article by Jim Fisher, Harrison
Hills Baptist Church, Lanesville, Indiana, May 2004
There had to be a simple reason why this
happened. Somehow answers are so simple we (I) have a hard time
understanding them. It is so simple and goes directly to what
has been said many times over. People in the community saw
Christians doing something and wanted to be a part of what was
going on. Everyone was telling everyone they met what God was
doing, how God was blessing Summit. A great work was going on.
Now ten years later we live in the past, forgetting that God
will complete what He has started. Somewhere along the way we
made a choice to keep re-living an event, which has past. Living
on what God has “done” when we should be continuing the
“good race”. We chose to stop, to become complacent with
what we had. We slowly turned inward placing focus on self and
programs; we lost sight of the community around us along with
the vision God had given. We somehow began a slow and painful
death which many churches experience when they reach a
mountaintop. They desire to re-live the experience instead of
taking the experience and using it as strength to make it
through the next valley.
We are no different than the Israelite’s
when they turned to making golden calves to worship, we have
turned from God, we have turned to programs and self in an ill
attempt to teach people about Him when we should be
introducing them to Him. We have grown content with making
converts and increasing our numbers, but what about
discipleship? Where did we leave it? We left it where we began
taking credit for “what we had done”. Once our second
building was finished we began to pat ourselves on the back,
then immediately went to complaining about other things we
needed. We were once a church that shared what we had, like the
church in Acts 4. Then as Ananias we became a church that held
back what was rightfully Gods.
Another analogy could be that we started
off as the servant, who invested the five talents, which God had
entrusted him with, then somehow we became as the third servant
who horded what God had given us. In an effort to preserve what
we had we changed from investing in the community to telling the
community what we had done, to complaining about what we did not
have. In all reality we sterilized our self from seeing people "begotten through the gospel." Sure people continue to come;
many enter for the religious experience, the worship music and
membership without responsibility. It seems few are there with a
solid commitment and understanding of what God desires of them.
Our programs and supposed ministries, what
do they really do, who do they really serve? Our commitment to
God, where has it gone? Has it died? Was the seed planted in bad
soil? Or was the seed was not yet ready for planting? Has
the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat.
It could be any of the preceding, and whatever the reason
there has been minimal growth to produce fruit that would ripen
to produce seed, the few who did begin to develop fruit quickly
became dormant or remain in the bud, their roots never reaching
living water. For years we have added to the branch without
pruning, isn’t it time to prune with responsibility, which
will make the buds bloom and produce good fruit? We have reached
a point where we are a burden on our root and if we do not begin
to produce fruit we will be quickened from the vine only to be
thrown into the flames. Will we be a burnt offering, ashes,
worthless to anyone? Responsibility to Gods Word needs to be
taken so we can become the living sacrifices God intended us to
be.
Are we to build a new storehouse so we will
have a place to hide what we have? Are we as a church going to
continue with our secularism and horde Gods blessing. Are we
going to do the American thing of possessing more and building
storage space for what we have collected? Things possessed and
stored are of little use, mere possessions serving no purpose,
only adding to the burden. Are we going to become laborers with
Christ and move into the community to begin harvest, while
planting seeds from our fruits, or are we going to be a briar
hiding among the blackberries? Are we avoiding the opportunities
God gives us to serve Him?
Do we want to be a healthy church
that reaches out to the community, or do we want to be a big
church that stands out in the community?
It is a hard question, but one that
needs to be asked and more importantly answered.
Clyde
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