Grow In Christ

How can we know if a church is doing well? Is it growing? How many people are turning up on Sundays?

Think about the other churches in Mosgiel. How well are they doing? What are their numbers like? And we might even ask that secretly thinking, “Are they doing better than us?”. Or, we might look at our own church and think, “Hmmm, number are down a bit today. Not a good sign!”

I suggest that we shift our focus from church growth (if that means increasing the numbers) to people growth. A church is doing well if its people are growing.

Can you think of a New Testament passage that talks about increasing the size of a church? I don’t mean the church. There are passages about the growth of the church overall. I mean individual churches. Does God say anywhere  He wants bigger churches?

There are passages about the number of new believers, for example, on the Day of Pentecost. Baptisms are a very good indication that a church is doing well. God likes churches sharing the gospel and people are coming to faith in Jesus. Acts 4:4 says that the church in Jerusalem had grown to about 5,000 men. But those 5,000 men plus women and children would have been in lots of house churches. They probably never met together in one place. Yes, the church was growing – very rapidly – but there is no sense that the objective was to have bigger house churches – or any secret competitive ambition to have the biggest house church in Jerusalem.

In fact, the house churches probably sent their best people out to lead new house churches. But they could do that only if they had focused on growing those people to be missionaries, or to be new house church leaders. In other words, growing people will grow the church, but the focus is growing people.

Jesus did not attract new followers by saying, “This is going to be amazing. We are going to build this big movement. There are going to be hundreds of thousands of people and we are going to change the world.” What attracted Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow Jesus? Two things: Jesus Himself. They had already seen and heard Jesus, and they wanted to follow Him. But the second thing was that Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you…” He said, “I am going to form you into… fishers of people”. They said, “We have got no idea what you are talking about, but we want to be your disciples. We will be your students. We will follow your teaching and your example. We are willing to be changed by you.”

Just out of interest, compare what Jesus said to those men with our mission statement. “Come, follow me.” That is an invitation into a relationship. That is about knowing. “And I will make you.” That is about growing. “Fishers of people.” That is about going. I find it really encouraging when something we think is worthwhile is reflected in lots of other places. Oh yeah, there it is, and there it is again, and there it is again. Maybe we have hit on a biblical principle.

Jesus often turned people away! Success, for Him, was not about numbers but about quality.

I can think of lots of New Testament passages that talk about our growth as individuals.

1 Peter 2:2-3

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Step 1: newborn babies who had tasted that the Lord is good. They had experienced God and come to know Him. Great! Now, step 2: crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.

READ 2 Peter 1:5-11 (2 slides)

2 Peter 3:18a

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Some passages express God’s disappointment at people’s lack of growth.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

Hebrews 5:11-14

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

We are not commanded to have big churches, but we are commanded to make disciples – which means growing people: teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. Growth is not optional. Some people think as long as they are born again, they are OK. But God keeps telling us to grow and is frustrated when we don’t. With our own children, we do not think, “As long as I give birth to them, that’s OK”. No, as parents, our desire is to grow them to maturity, to be independent and have their own children.

I am not against big churches. Some people are very critical of big churches and some of that is envy, I think. My point is that bigness is not the objective. Growing people is the priority. Big churches and small churches can be brilliant at growing people. Big churches and small churches can be very bad at growing people. The point is not the size but are they growing people?

As I said before, growing people will often also lead to growing numbers. Bringing more people into the Kingdom of God is important, but it is the result of growing people. If we focus on the quality, the quantity will follow. Jesus focused on growing, primarily, 12 men. The result of doing that well was that the quantity followed; the church grew rapidly.

Back to my original question: How can we know if a church is doing well? How can we know if our church is doing well? We are commissioned to make disciples. How can we know if we are doing that? What are the indications that people are growing? We cannot give a comprehensive answer to that today but let’s just look for hints in the passages we have already looked at.

2 Peter 1 said we are to make every effort to add to our faith, goodness then knowledge, then self-control, then perseverance, then godliness, then affection, then love. Eight characteristics of Christ-likeness. Those things are indications that we are doing well.

In the reading from 1 Corinthians 3, how did Paul know that the Corinthians were “mere infants in Christ” and “still worldly”? (Pause) There was jealousy and quarrelling among them. Paul is very clear. That sort of behaviour was clear proof of their lack of maturity. “Since there is jealousy and quarrelling amongst you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere human beings?” (v.3)

One indication of spiritual maturity is how we treat each other – the quality of our relationships. Often that is about self-centredness. Jealousy and quarrelling are all about me.

Flip that coin over. What is on the other side of the its-all-about-me coin? Jesus’ new commandment: “Love one another in the same way that I have loved you.” That is how we can know if a church is doing well. Is it a community of love for one another and a community that take love into the world?

In the reading from Hebrews, what was the evidence that the readers were still infants? (Pause) I think we see two things: they no longer try to understand and they should have been teachers by now but they still needed to be taught elementary truths.

They no longer try to understand. Apparently, they once did try to understand but not now. They were once interested in learning and growing. Not now. They haven’t even learnt the “elementary truths of God’s word”. They have got to be taught those things all over again. They are still at a basic level, and their teachers are probably going to be very frustrated because they are not even interested in learning.

The second indication of their immaturity is that they should by now have been teachers. They should be giving, but they are still just taking. They should have been ministering to others, but they were passive recipient of ministry. They were like little children who need to be fed, rather than being adults who were feeding the next generation.

Again, they showed a self-centredness and a lack of love for others. If they loved others, they would be keen to serve them, help them, grow them. No, not interested!

God’s intention is clearly that we grow to the point where we serve others – in whatever ways we are gifted for and whatever ways God calls us. Maybe a better measure of how we as church are doing is not how many people are coming, but how many people are going. How many people are we sending? (Which just, coincidentally, happens to be the third line in our mission statement. Know, grow, go.)

I think we can be very encouraged. East Taieri has sent out a lot of people who are now ministers in other churches, or missionaries or workers in Christian organisations. And it is not just about serving elsewhere. Think of the people who have grown into ministry in our church, serving as elders, or life group leaders, or on the catering team or part of the SHFT team, or whatever. This church has a history of people coming to know Jesus, growing in Christ and going in the Spirit. May that history continue. Let’s maintain that culture of knowing, growing, and going.

We could think of lots of other indications that people are growing. Romans 12:2 talks about being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Are we thinking biblically? Do we know the word of God so well that it shapes how we think; we think the same way God thinks?

How do we respond to challenges? Do we trust God in the testing times? When we are under pressure, the façade sometimes cracks and our real character is revealed. What do tough times reveal about what sort of people we are?

If we want one word for what maturity looks like it is “Christ-likeness”. That is only a very partial list but does it look like “Christ-likeness”?

Maybe one aspect of our thinking being increasingly aligned with God’s thinking is to shift our focus from church growth to people growth. Our mission is making disciples.

How do we do that? Oh bother, our time has run out! But “How?” is obviously a crucial question.

We have talked before about how Jesus made disciples, how did Jesus grew leaders. I fundamentally believe that Jesus is our model, and we do best when we follow His example. We grow people to be like Jesus by ourselves being like Jesus. Christ-likeness in us includes acting like Christ. If I am right in saying that the primary focus should be people growth – and you need to test that against the scriptures and seek God about that – but, if I am right, then we need to keep on studying Jesus for the how. And we need to actually do it. We need to be focused on growing people in Christ. This is our mission.

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