The growing church (Acts 9:31)

The growing church

[Acts 9:31]

This is an article on ‘How to radically change the church” in the “Church Growth Institute”: ‘The greatest church is a church that is not afraid of change. God is the leader of change. How can we effectively and fundamentally change the church? I suggest 10 things:

Gain leadership for change.

People are looking at a leader and change begins with that leader. Build a leadership team for reform.

Seek the sign of a healthy church.

The purpose of change is to become a healthy church. The changed church is the result of the sum of diagnosis, prescription, effort, and ability. Medical examination and prescription are essential. The signs of the healthy church are faith, leadership, excellence, dedication, creativity, and obedience.

Have a creative crisis.

The biggest crisis is no sense of crisis. A sense of urgency is the driving force of new creation. Reformation is possible not by pleasant conversation but by desperate action.

Settle the wrong past.

Anyone who sees the rearview mirror without looking ahead will fail. Neither the past form of ministry nor the present form of ministry is desirable. It has to be changed to the paradigm of future ministry. Seek meaning rather than form, and creation rather than preservation.

Reevaluate your budget and finances.

In the future, economic problems will have the greatest impact on the church. If you don't manage your money properly, your spirituality can be destroyed. The budget and financial situation reveal the growth potential of the church.

Focus on your vision.

The most important thing is purpose and vision. Those who have a vision are distinguished in their behavior, relationships, abilities, and spirituality. You must not work hard to achieve your vision. You have to risk your life. Vision is about delivering and accomplishing more than owning. Vision must be for the whole, not the part.

Make the saints strong.

Strengthening the saints is a shortcut to growth. Let it be a church with a large number of believers who help pastors rather than one pastor who helps them. Training the lay people is the biggest pastoral mission.

Celebrate a small success.

Success brings success. You need to be able to celebrate a little success so that you can plan for the bigger success. Organizations with adequate rewards and recognition are healthy.

Pursue the reproduction of change.

Change is contagious. Changes in one person are communicated to others, and the success of one organization is extended to the success of another. A healthy church exists as a distribution model, not a model of ownership. Even if you realize the need for change and make sure you are motivated, you are already more than half successful.

Settle the culture of change.

Change is not just two events, but a lifestyle that continues every day. It is most important that change become the culture of the church. When culture changes, everything changes’(Internet).

I want to think about four things about the growing church based on Acts 9:31, and apply them to our church.

First, there is peace in the growing church.

Look at Acts 9:31 – “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. ….” The environment in which the early church had peace was not peace without persecution and difficulty, but internal peace among these things (Yoo). This inner peace is the peace that the Lord gives in a world without peace. In John 20:19, 21, Jesus appeared to His disciples who were afraid and gathered on the first evening after the crucifixion and resurrection and said, "Peace be with you!" The peace of the Lord to His disciples in fear is peace that this world could not understand and that this world could not give. There must be this peace in the church. There must be peace from the Lord. But what about churches these days? Is there any peace that the Lord gives? What are the churches that we know? Aren’t they many problems that are breaking the peace of the church? The Bible Acts 9:31 tells us that “the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace.” Not in one church, but in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, all the churches were enjoying the peace of the Lord. How amazing is this? Doesn't it sound too unreal for us? Interestingly, in Acts chapters 8-9, the church spread to many places through the saints scattered throughout the region due to the persecution of Stephen's martyrdom. Therefore, the gospel of Christ was preached here and there through the scattered saints, and churches were established. Eventually, scattered disciples of Jesus spread the peace of God as well as the gospel of Jesus. But what about now? Rather than being scattered by persecution, the saints are experiencing the scattering of God through sin in the church, and the scattered saints are guilty of going to another church and breaking the peace rather than preaching the gospel. There are peace-makers in the church, but there are peace-breakers in the church as well.

We must be peacemakers as sons and daughters of God. Look at Matthew 5:9 - “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” And in order to be peacemakers, we must let the peace of God to guard our hearts and our minds. In order to do this, we must not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, we must present our request to God (Phil. 4:6-7). Pastor Ken Sande, founder and representative of Peacemaker Ministry, has been instrumental in resolving hundreds of conflict cases involving biblical division, business, employment, and family disputes since 1982 using the Bible principles. There are many books on conflict resolution, including his representative book, “The Peacemaker: The Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict.” ‘To be a peacemaker, the Christians must first grasp the principle of conflict resolution through the Bible. … We should meditate and study the life of Jesus Christ, the perfect example of a peacemaker. We also need systematic training to put these principles into practice in our lives. … Learning to view conflict from a biblical perspective can solve many problems associated with avoiding and responding to conflicts. The Bible does not teach that all conflict is bad. Rather, some differences are taught to be natural and beneficial. The Christians should not avoid conflicts or require others to always agree with us, but should learn to rejoice in the diversity of God's creation and to work with people of different perspectives (Rom. 15:7, 14:1–13). The Christians should be able to remove the roots of conflict and open the way for true peace (Jam. 4:1-2, Mt. 18:15)’ (Internet).

Second, the growing church is being built up.

Look at Acts 9:31 – “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up ….” Here “being build up” means building up, not an external business aspect, but an internal godliness (Park). May local churches in early churches were largely built spiritually, united in saints in love internally rather than externally built up largely. In order for the church to be built spiritually, it must be edible with love. According to Dr. Yun-sun Park, “love edifies” in 1 Corinthians 8:1 is the same as saying that it builds up. If so, the lesson that the growing church is being built up means that the growing church is a church that edifies in love.

How is this in contrast with the churches these days? How do we explain the signs of division within in the churches that may have been built largely externally, but internally there are conflicts and divisions more than the element of love? There must be love in the church. There must be love that edifies. Then the church will grow. What must we do to be such a church?

We must attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of Jesus.

Look at Ephesians 4:13 – “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” But the truth we must bear in mind here is that we must be careful with knowledge that puffs up. Look at 1 Corinthians 8:1 - … Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

We must speak the truth in love.

Look at Ephesians 4:15 – “Instead, speaking the truth in love ….”

We must serve the church according to our gifts with the help of the Lord who is the head of the church.

Look at Ephesians 4:16 – “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

More specifically, how can we edify our faith?

We should not give offense to everyone.

Look at 1 Corinthians 10:32-33: “Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.” We should seek the profit of others. It's a way to edify others when we think ‘Will this profit others?’ before we speak and act. If we see the newcomers are getting hurt and prevent them from attending the church, it is because the believers’ words and actions are not example to them. Especially we must be careful with our tongue. We must try not to commit sin with our tongue.

We must strive to give glory to God.

Look at 1 Corinthians 10:31 – “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” The edifying faith is everything that leads a life to glorify God. On the contrary, if we live for the sake of our will, our faith is not edifying faith. In the church, if we keep on saying that self-assertion is right, it is not edifying even it is right. For the truth, we must risk our lives and keep the incision of faith, but other than the truth it is edifying to do everything to glorify God and not for ourselves. So if it is glorifying God when we lose, then we should lose. And if yielding is glorifying God, then we should yield (Internet).

Third, the growing church proceeds with the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Look at Acts 9:31 – “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.” Here, “the fear of the Lord” means ‘the believer is devoted in obeying His will, consciously and acting in the presence of God’ (Park). The growing church is conscious of God's holy presence in the fear of the Lord. Therefore, in reverence in God's holy presence, we try to accomplish only the will of the Lord. One of the Lord's wills is written in Amos 5:14 – “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; ….” This is the growing church. Those saints in the growing church leave evil and do good. This is the living saint and living church. In this church there is the comfort of the Holy Spirit. In other words, there is comfort in the Holy Spirit for those who obey His will in the Lord's ordinances by fearing God rather than fearing people in the midst of persecution of the wicked. This Holy Spirit is God comforting us when we are in trouble. In particular, the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ (2 Cor. 1:5). Therefore, the Holy Spirit comforts us in all our affliction (v. 4). In the church, a community of these people, there is inner peace during the time of trouble (Park).

The church must have the comfort of the Holy Spirit as the saints who fear the Lord live in obedience to God's will. No matter how difficult or adversary we are in obeying the will of the Lord, we do not need to worry because the Holy Spirit works in those who do the truth and gives them sufficient comfort. As the Romans 15:4 says, the Holy Spirit gives us hope through the encouragement of the Scriptures. The church that is gathered with those who fear the Lord and are comforted is growing.

Fourth and last, the growing church continues to increase.

Look at Acts 9:31 – “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.” This means that the number of church members is increased. If the church has a lot of numbers without internal grace, it will not enjoy spiritual peace. But the church with internal grace, such as “the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit,” can grow both quantitatively and spiritually (Park). In Acts 2:47, the Bible says that the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved, in 4:4 the number of the men came to be about 5,000, and in 6:1, the Bible says “the disciples were increasing in number.” In Acts 6:7, the Bible says that “the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem.”

Pastor Kyung Ho Kim of Wildflower Hyanginin Church writes: ‘I believe that the greatest disease that the church cannot follow Christ's path is growth ideology. The growth ideology disease is not only in the big church but also in the small church. The churches are doing multiplying movement and constantly presenting the growth of numbers. As far as the increase in numbers is concerned is the sign of the kingdom of God, the way of Christ, the reality is far from following Christ in that life and following the way of Christ in this field of history. The need to cure the church growth disease is what I felt with my skin during my ministry. In fact, the pastor is the most vulnerable to church growth disease. So I decided myself to draw a line from there, and when I reached the scale of independence, I thought that it would be a healthy way to grow a self-sustaining community church by setting up a branch church’ (Internet). What do you think of Pastor Kim’s comment? Should the church's numerical growth (quantitative growth) be criticized unconditionally? We must be very wary of criticizing quantitative growth while insisting only on the quality of the church. Of course, stealing sheep in pursuit of church quantitative growth is also a big problem for the church, but the fact that there is no quantitative growth is also a problem. Pastor William Chadwick confessed his conscience in his book, “Sheep Stealing,” calling himself the pastor who pursued church growth first by stealing the sheep. In this book he pointed out the problem of horizontal movement of the church members in the dark side of the church growth. He boldly pointed out that trying to bring other church members (sheep) to my church is stealing sheep. Listen to what he said: ‘As the growth of church numbers slowed down in the 1990s, there were increasing criticism about church growth in the past was not caused by 'conversion growth', but by 'transfer growth' (horizontal movement of members). The church has grown only statistically, with little growth in the kingdom of God.’ He honestly confessed that he was a pastor who pursued transfer growth, and he realized later that what the church really needs to pursue is not transfer growth, but conversion growth. In fact, he specifically confessed the history of the so-called stealing of sheep by attracting the other church members and fattened his church while hurting them (Internet).

I hope and pray that there is peace in our church. I also hope and pray that our church can be built up. I pray that our church will proceed with the fear of the Lord and comfort of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord continue to add the new believers in our church.

Desiring to love the church that the Lord is establishing even more,

James Kim

(Praying that the Lord will continue to grow our church)