growing churches

The Jerusalem Church (Part 5): The Vision–Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

July 15, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the fifth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

Jerusalem by mharrsch I like to talk about the Jerusalem church a lot. I see it as an exemplary church of growth and work. I know we claim to want to be what they were and do what they did, but how many congregations achieve what they achieved?

As I talk about this example, I’ll mention that according to Acts 2:41 they started with about 3000 members. By Acts 4:4, the number of men came to be about 5000. When you add in wives, widows, and children, this means the congregation could have been between 10,000 and 15,000. Yet, somehow many brethren tend to believe if a congregation gets over 150 they must be doing something wrong. Either they are doing something wrong to attract that many members or simply having that many members is wrong all by itself (after all, how can the elders know everyone in a 10,000 member congregation?). Yet, Jerusalem did it.

A sad byproduct of talking about this aspect of the Jerusalem church is missing the actual vision. Some people have a vision of getting a church to be so large. Maybe their vision is to get to 100. Maybe 500. Maybe 1000. Maybe 10,000. The problem is what happens when you accomplish that number? Will the church continue to reach out and save the lost? Usually not. We have a tendency to reach our goals and then take breaks.

When we look at Jerusalem, however, we don’t see a church with a goal of 10,000 members. We see a church with a goal of saving one more person. More than giving the life-changing gospel to one more person, they made sure they could handle adding one more person as part of the congregation. This is the real issue for us today. Most churches know well enough to claim they want one more convert. What we often miss is that how we run the congregation on a practical level, the kind of facilities we have, the kind of leadership we employ, the kind of relationships we develop all limit our ability to grow.

The Jerusalem church was not simply about baptizing one more person. They were about conducting their work, even changing their work, in such a way as to handle having that one more person be a viable part of the congregation.

If we are going to really grow congregations today, we must do more than simply work on baptizing people. There are many churches that baptize people ever year, but they never grow. We need to be like Jerusalem, expanding and adapting our leadership and work to allow for the growth many of us claim to want.

Keep coming back and we’ll discuss the keys of the Jerusalem church’s success in this growth and expansion.

I hope you are enjoying and learning from this look at the Jerusalem Church. Come back next week as we learn that the Jerusalem vision is not about hiring enough workhands, but about getting all hands working.

The Jerusalem Church (Part 4): The Vision: Exemplary Church not Mother Church

March 25, 2010 by Edwin Crozier Leave a Comment

(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the fourth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

No doubt, the Jerusalem church is the most successful church in all of history. It grew in times of peace. It grew in times of adversity. It was the start of every other congregation in its day; in essence the start of every other congregation throughout all history. Because of the work the Jerusalem church did, when the first persecution hit in earnest, the members were ready to take their message to other cities and towns. When other churches were started, even after so many were scattered, the Jerusalem church sent helpers to strengthen the fledgling congregations.

As we continue to examine the Jerusalem church, we can very quickly develop some mistaken perceptions. We can highlight the wrong things and miss what really made them so successful. We need to make sure we keep the Jerusalem vision clear or we will not be able to have the success she enjoyed for so long.

The Jerusalem Vision: An Examplary Church, not a Mother Church

Sadly, many modern Christians turn to Acts 15:2 and misunderstand the Jerusalem vision. They see a mother church. They read into this verse 1500 years of Catholicism and 400 years of Protestant denominationalism. They think Paul and Barnabas were traveling to Jerusalem to learn what they were supposed to teach about the circumcision issue or to participate in a meeting to decide what they were to teach. They were going back to the mother church to learn the truth so they would teach correctly. This is often seen as the first “church council” or “synod” in a long line of many.

That, however, is not at all what is going on here. Paul was not traveling to Jerusalem to find out what to teach. They were not having a council to figure out what all the churches should teach. Remember what Paul said in Galatians 1:11-12:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, not was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul did not learn what to teach about the gospel by going to the apostles or to the Jerusalem church. He didn’t learn the gospel message from a church council or synod. He received direct revelation from Jesus Christ Himself. The next two chapters are Paul’s detailed explanation of how he didn’t get his message from men.

In fact, look at Paul’s own participation in the Jerusalem debate. There is no question. There is not, “Let us find out what to teach.” There is simply his own teaching that he had confirmed by the work of the Holy Spirit during his ministry. “And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.”

What is going on then? First, notice what prompted Paul’s trip to Jerusalem.

“But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved'” (Acts 15:1).

However, the letter the Jerusalem church wrote at the end of this debate gets even more specific.

“Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions…” (Acts 15:24).

Why did Paul and his companions from Antioch travel to council with the apostles and brethren in Jerusalem? Because that was the source of error that had gone out. They were not going to meet with a mother church to find out or figure out what to teach. They were going to a church to find out why teachers of error were coming out from them. Apparently, the Jerusalem church was divided on this issue and hadn’t realized it yet. This was not a debate to determine what all churches would teach. This was a debate to determine what Jerusalem would teach. Paul and Barnabas were not traveling to learn, they were traveling to teach and correct.

Of course, we still ask why this matters. If Jerusalem wasn’t the mother church, who cares what her teachers taught? Even though she wasn’t the mother church, she was an exemplary church. After all, she was the first. Further, she did have the apostles. While other churches did not bow to the church of Jerusalem, they did look up to her.

If we are going to be like Jerusalem, we must not seek to make our congregations mother churches. Sadly, there are organizations of churches cropping up everywhere. Some church has success and starts spreading out satellites all over the nation, establishing themselves as a mother church. We must not do that. Jerusalem did not. Certainly, we can and should seek to be exemplary. We should seek to be an example of godly conduct and proper congregational work and teaching. There is nothing wrong with others looking to our congregation for good advice and council. But each church should be left to govern itself with the shepherds the Holy Spirit has raised up among them submitting directly to the Chief Shepherd (Acts 20:28; I Peter 5:1-4).

Yes, we will be looking to the Jerusalem church. But we will not do so because she was the mother church. Rather, she was an exemplary church who blazed the trail for us in so many ways.

Make sure to come back next Thursday to continue learning about the Jerusalem Vision. It wasn’t about having 10,000 members, but about being able to convert one more and continue growing.

The Jerusalem Church: An Introduction

February 11, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 9 Comments

the-franklin-church-featured

I can’t help but be in awe of the Jerusalem church. They started on the day of Pentecost with nearly 3000 members (Acts 2:41). Then they just kept growing from there. According to Acts 4:4, the number of men came to be about 5000. That means they could have more than 10,000 members by the time you count wives, unmarried women, widows, and children. In Acts 5:14-16, we learn that multitudes of men and women continued to be added to the church and they were influencing folks from the surrounding towns. In Acts 6:7, we see that even some of the priests (who were often Sadducees) were becoming Christians. What tremendous growth they had.

Of course, we know about the persecution that took place in Acts 8:4 scattering everyone except the apostles. However, by the time Paul visited Jerusalem in Acts 21:20, the church was in the thousands again.

The church was so strong that they were able to send brethren to help out in other congregations even after the persecution started. In Acts 8:14, Peter and John were sent to help the Christians in Samaria. In Acts 11:22, they sent Barnabas to help strengthen the fledgling church in Antioch.

In Acts 4, we see them face down the beginnings of persecution. In Acts 6 we see them over come potential division. In Acts 15, we see them lead the way to unity between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

Jerusalem is definitely a model for us. But what did they actually do? Is there anything we can actually emulate? Can we be what they were? I think we can. We simply need to examine their work on a very practical level. Sadly, few churches today ever become what Jerusalem was because few of us do what they did. Sure, we teach what they taught. But sometimes we avoid the very practical way in which they conducted their work and so we limit the growth and success we can have.

Over the next several Thursdays (I haven’t figured out how many yet), I’d like to examine the Jerusalem church and see what made it successful and what didn’t. I hope this can spark some great discussion for us as we strive to be what God wants us to be as individual Christians and as congregations.

Remember, God’s way works.

Index of Posts

Introduction

What Didn’t Make it Work–Miraculous Gifts

What Didn’t Make it Work–Times Were Different Then

The Jerusalem Vision–An Exemplary Church, not a Mother Church

The Jerusalem Vision–One More Member, not 10,000 members

The Jerusalem Vision–Every Hand Working, not Enough Hired Hands

The Jerusalem Vision–Enough Workers, not 12 Evangelists

The Jerusalem Vision–Close-knit Family, not a Corporation

The Jerusalem Vision–Personal Sacrifice, not Communism

The Jerusalem Vision–Problem Solving, not Problem Free