Church Growth The Way God Meant It To Be

There are many people who are selling the next best idea about how to raise up a church that excels in the areas of buildings, bodies and bucks. It has been called a "Glitz, Glamor, and Glee" gospel or the "health and wealth" gospel. But these things are no different than corporate America. So what does really make a great church?

Dr. Gary Candlish described a church that is growing God's way at a conference on prophecy that I attended a few months ago. Here are some of the points that he made from that session:

• A growing church is a congregation of people that are committed to pleasing God "no matter what". We must never allow the culture to dictate what we will or won't do in church.


• A growing church must focus on the stuff of the Scriptures, affirming that Biblical truth is not obsolete. We must think outside the box, but never outside the book.


• A growing church cannot be built on a diet of spiritual cake and ice cream. We must place a premium on doctrine and serve spiritual broccoli and spinach with great regularity.


• A growing church does not use pragmatism as the reason for doing anything in the church. We must never allow faith to be become less important than finances, family, friends, fun, freedom.


• A growing church takes the focus off of their own sufficiency and comes humbly to worship and wait before the Lord. We must not draw our approval from the world's criteria for success.

So are we really ready to redefine church growth in Biblical terms? Are we ready to do the stuff of ministry with a focus on discipleship? Are we ready to move beyond surface level results and get God's heartbeat on the matter?

If there's something sickly or dying in our churches, what better place to go for wisdom than to its founder, God. We, as leaders of WyBC, have arranged our focus around a Biblical model of discipleship. We desire to see people built up in Christ through a process of "Come In, Put Off, Put On and Go Out". This construction of God's church through intentional discipleship is our mission.

We, therefore, are committed to pleasing God in every aspect of this growth cycle. We will endeavor to use the Scriptures as our standard of faith and practice at every phase of this cycle. We desire church growth to occur at God's speed and according to God's parameters. We understand that God, and God alone, is able to convict the hearts of men and bring about true heart change and life results. We are building an environment that is designed to offer every person that enters it a chance to begin or build his/her personal relationship with God. With God's help, I look forward to seeing many lives changed into the image of Jesus -- beginning with me!

Changing and growing for the glory of God,

Mike

Here'e Some More -- Titus 2:11

Mondays are often a day of "watching film" for football players and coaches. I have found that my evaluative nature causes me to go back over my notes from Sunday's sermons on Monday morning. I jot in the "on-the-fly" illustrations and comments that I made and flesh out portions of the messsage that were weaker or not able to be discussed at length. This editing "after delivery" helps especially when an expositional, "work through a book" hermeneutic and methodlogy are employed. It gets you ready for the next piece of the pie.

This Monday was no different. I just preached Titus 2:11 on Sunday afternoon. I suggested that this verse was a reference to the gracious ministry and activity of Christ as he lived and died and rose again here on this earth. Our ministry, then, ought to bear the marks of such graciousness as well! After all we are disciples, copies, imitators of Christ! The beauty of grace is unmistakable and must be displayed in all of our ministry efforts.

Beautiful, ornamented ministry...
a. Uses both grace and truth to make God known
b. Presents Jesus as the gracious Savior
c. Removes any ungraces that might distort the gospel
d. Lives each day graciously

All good challenges, but there is more! These notes (following) are part of a sidebar that I worked out myself:

1. Jesus came to reveal, explain, invite others to salvation; he wanted to introduce others to a knowing relationship with God. I must do the same.
2. He made grace appear right before their very eyes. I must do the same.
3. No one had seen God before, but they saw Jesus and therefore had seen the Father! I want this to be true of me as well! (ie I have never seen God, but I have seen Mike and he is a spitting image of him!)

Thanks for thinking about incarnational ministry with me. Thanks for doing incarnational ministry with me!

Mimicking my gracious Savior,
Mike