Welcome!
Today: Church growth-God’s way!
Passage: Eph 4
11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Eph 4, NIV)
All Christians are called to Evangelize
However, some are gifted with the gift of Evangelism
They will go around and share the gospel with almost everyone
Some do it personally; some do it in a large scale, like Billy Graham
Jesus asked his disciples to go and Evangelize, and also teach (Mt 28:19-20)
How often do we share Jesus with others?
Believe it or not, many are eager to hear the gospel-many whom we see every day
We have a responsibility to share. The woman at the well (John 4) started sharing, the very next moment she was transformed
Jesus, by the gift of the word of knowledge, told her everything about her
She surrendered. All the boasting about her Church and traditions stopped when Jesus told her who he was, and who she was. Her Church never did that!
That is the gospel. The gospel tells people two things basically: who God is, and who they are. The understanding of that brings them to God
Once a person becomes a child of God, God’s desire is that he/she grows and keeps growing unto the stature of Christ, getting mature
It is the Church’s responsibility to cater the word of God, and teach the people so that they will grow right. Unfortunately, all the focus is on quantitative growth, even at the cost of quality. The children in the house need to be taken care of first, before going for more outside
Jesus said the parable of the lost sheep, where the shepherd will leave everything else and go after the one that is lost. That has become “history”
Today, the mentality is to ignore the lost and go after others. “If one is lost, I will get ten others” is not Jesus’ method. We got things wrong somewhere
As we see in the verses in Eph 4:11-13, God wants the Church to be built up first. As the Church grows in quality, people will start coming in. No tricks or techniques needed. That is how Church grows with quality people
We need to sit first, and then stretch. The Church need to come back big time!
Unless the Church focus on quality than quantity, we will end up with more people of less quality – a church which big in size, but weak
God bless us, as we focus on that which God focuses
Amen
BG
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for calling me to become a citizen of your kingdom, a heir of your inheritance. Help me Lord, not to be too selfish to keep it all for me, but to share this great news with as many of my friends as possible. Amen