Morning Sermon

September 2, 2007

Church Growth

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There is absolutely no question that Christmas morning was the greatest of all mornings when I was growing up. There was no day whose thrill and excitement c

For the last 40 years, the influence of the church growth movement in the United States cannot be underestimated. The church growth movement has come to define the very mission of the church, which is growth. The goal of the church is growth. The purpose of the church is growth. The vision of the church is growth. The very reason for the existence of the church is growth. The sole measure of success of the church is growth. And the health and strength of the church is measured by its growth. Growth in numbers. Growth in attendance. Growth in observable, statistical benchmarks and the evaluations of social science. The purpose of the church is to become larger, and the success of the church is measured by how large it becomes.

And so, to make the church grow, you follow a certain strategy. You make people comfortable. You are sensitive to so-called seekers. You give them what they want. You provide the service desired and sought after by the greatest number of consumers. And so, lo and behold, along with the mega-malls and superstores of our culture, we have the mega-church.

And so here I am, preaching to you about church growth. Perhaps I could recite for you 101 ways to make our church grow. Maybe I could give you the fruit of my research regarding the most effective means of enabling the church to grow. Maybe I should teach from the book, "Ten Steps for Church Growth." Or, "How to Grow a Church." It really is no different from growing a garden. Just add the right ingredients, plenty of water, and a few simple steps.

Maybe, in my sermon, I could preach to you that it is God's will for the church to grow large, that if we were twice as big we could say we have been twice as successful. Or maybe if four times as big we would be four times as successful. Or a hundred times.

But I won't do any of those things. And not just because I haven't read any of those books, but because I am called to preach the word, the inspired word of God. I am called to proclaim to you the wisdom of God not the wisdom of the social sciences nor the pragmatics of statistical analysis.

And yet, in preaching the Bible, I will preach upon God's will for church growth. v.11-16

There we have it. True biblical church growth. Not simply a reduction to the bottom line of the membership roll or attendance charts, but true biblical church growth. v.15 "[that the church] may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ."

And notice verse 16. How church growth is measured. v.16

What is the definition of church growth? The growth of the body takes place when "every part does its share."

So that's where we begin today in our study of church growth. With what is often called,

I. THE GENERAL OFFICE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. It is a description of all believers. All Christians. All those who belong to the church. And the contrast is with the special offices, namely the ordained offices of Elder and Deacon. That's usually our focus when we speak about church officers, but in this sense, with this language, there is the dignity and identity of all the members of the church. A general office. The office of believer!

Our own Form of Government puts it this way, "All believers are endued with the Spirit and called of Christ to join in the worship, edification, and witness of the church which grows as the body of Christ fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in due measure of each part." Now where did that come from? Obviously, our text this morning. So you are all officers in the church, general officers, called by God to build the church. And with that responsibility, let me emphasize your ability. "All believers are endued with the Spirit and called of Christ."

A. All believers are enabled to help the church grow. That is the clear emphasis of, v.7

Don't miss that. The object of God's distribution of gifts is "each one." Everyone. Each individual member of the church is the recipient of God's grace. That grace is given "to each one." And the determination of those gifts was "according to the measure of Christ's gift."

That is no different from what we studied in the evening sermon series on, 1 Cor. 12:7 "But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all."

And, 1 Cor. 12:11 "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills."

There is a consistent emphasis upon the universal distribution of gifts throughout the church. The enabling ability to build the church is distributed to each one individually. Clearly, the origin of the ability is God. God the Trinity, for there in 1 Corinthians 12 is reference to the Holy Spirit. In our text in Ephesians 4, the giver of enabling power to build the church is Christ. We receive a measure of Christ's gift.

This can never be mere theory. This can never be an isolated or disregarded notion to be ignored. This must be at the center of your heart and mind as you take your place within the membership of this church. You are enabled, by God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to help the church grow. You are enabled to be part of that church growth. And you are enabled in such a way as to be of benefit to the whole body.

You might be the thumb-pretty humble but extremely important. You might be the eyes or the ears, or maybe even a portion of the brain. You might be the arms or the legs, the skin or the bones. But the point is you are enabled by God.

Specifically,

B. God bestows gifts upon all believers. Paul mentions some of them here in our text. This is always a dangerous topic to preach about, because people invariably get defensive and insecure about their "gifts." Somehow, this idea of being bestowed with gifts is too intimidating for many people, as if these words can't possibly apply to them. But they apply to everyone. That's the point of the grace given to us according to the measure of Christ's gift. v.8-10

When Jesus Christ ascended to sit at the right hand of his father in heaven, he determined to rule and govern his church by giving gifts to men. To each of us. Paul quotes from Psalm 68, emphasizing the triumph of Christ. He has led captivity captive. That means he triumphed over his enemies. It is the triumphal procession of a victorious king. He first came to earth, "the lower parts of the earth," descending from heaven to earth in the incarnation. And then he ascended, he went back to heaven, victoriously.

And the victorious king of the church, seated upon his throne upon which he rules over the church, exercises his authority by enabling you and me to do things in the church for the benefit of the whole body. That's church growth.

So let me emphasize two things in this regard. First, Christ is the author and giver of gifts. He is their source. Not you. But secondly, you all have received gifts. You all have received an enabling. And church growth can be accomplished, church maturity, will only come about when you are working in the church toward that end! v.16

Well, before moving ahead further to a more detailed definition of church growth, let me emphasize the special offices of the church as well as the general office of church membership. We do find clearly defined for us,

II. THE SPECIAL OFFICES OF CHURCH LEADERSHIP. I wanted to begin as Paul did with the emphasis upon the work of every member of the church, but I also want to rightly emphasize the proper role of those whom we identify by ordination as special officers. v.11-12

Clearly,

A. God sets some men apart in distinct offices. Just look at verse 11.

Now this is particularly interesting because it includes both those offices we would identify as apostolic in nature as well as those that are on-going. But it is not always simple to distinguish them in this list. And Paul's point here isn't to define a list, but to emphasize the authority of Christ is establishing leaders. Officers. Appointed by Christ himself.

That begins, of course, with the apostles. And prophets. Those two are closely connected and associated, a connection made clear in,

Eph. 2:19 "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

So the foundation of the church, the unique, once and for all foundation upon which the church is built, is the apostolic office and prophetic office. Thus those are not ongoing, continuing offices, but foundational. They are not the bricks and mortar that build each story of the building we call the church, but they are the unique foundation laid at the beginning upon which everything else is built.

An apostle had to be one who had seen the Lord. He was one who bore the authority of Christ himself, attesting to Christ by signs, wonders and miracles. Likewise, the prophet was one give the authority to speak for Christ. Holy men of God who were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:20 "...knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

That's the prophetic foundation of the church, and the written record of that foundation. The Holy Scriptures. And it was through this foundational apostolic, prophetic office that the gospel was fully revealed.

Eph. 3:1 "For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles-- 2 if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, 7 of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power."

So God gave some to be apostles. Some prophets. It is beyond the scope of my sermon today to defend the idea that those offices have ceased, but I will proclaim that to you clearly. Those were the offices through which the foundation was laid. And that work was finished. So there is no more revelation. There is no more apostolic authority. There is no more inspired prophecy. We have the finished word of prophecy, the Holy Scriptures. And they are sufficient, final, and complete.

But then we have the on-going offices which Christ has established to continue as necessary within the church. The office of evangelist and the combined office of pastor and teacher. The Greek words do seem to join those two together, and I believe that is the correct understanding of Paul's idea. The evangelist is the one who is not joined to a local church, but seeking to build or establish a new church, presumably in a new place. The pastor-teacher is the one called to equip the saints within a local church.

That is precisely the language and terminology we use in the OPC, ordaining men who are church planters as evangelists. We don't ordain them as pastor-teachers when there is no body of God's people in which they pastor. Those who go to new areas, to start new works, are evangelists. And those who labor in existing, established congregations are pastors.

Now, at times, we do separate out teachers from pastors, particularly for those who teach in the training of men for the ministry, ordained as ministers of the gospel seminary teachers. There are also some men whose primary role is teaching in the church, as opposed to the fullness of the pastoral work, and we do call some to be teachers.

But for the most part, this special office is combined. The office of the pastor-teacher. And I want to focus upon that for a few moments this morning, because that office is so crucial for the whole concept of church growth.

Specifically, what is,

B. The goal of the pastor-teacher. What is the job description of the pastor-teacher?

Let me ask you a question. Is the job of the pastor-teacher to do the work of ministry? Ultimately, the answer is no. His job is not merely to DO the work of ministry but to equip others to DO the work of ministry.

Now, some people get carried away with this idea, as if the pastor sheds all his personal contact in ministry in favor of training others. Some pastors self-consciously give up pastoring altogether, as if their teaching and training of others was all they were required to do. So they do no visiting. No personal shepherding. No discipleship. No counseling. They become business administrators, effective, perhaps at organization and implementation of programs, but hardly a shepherd of sheep. Personally, they would barely know the sheep, perhaps not even by name.

That's not what I wish to describe, for that is not what Paul describes. His pastoring was intensely personal, and his ministry of the Word was both public and house to house. But he does contradict a rather historic and traditional view of the church that amounts to hiring a pastor to do the work of ministry in the church. And if you need more work done, you hire more pastors.

So the pastor ends up doing everything. And that is not a healthy church at all.

This, then, is the goal of the pastor-teacher. v.12

That's how the church is built up. Not when I do everything, because that's my job and I'm paid a salary. No. There are many things that fall to me because of that freedom you give by providing for my financial needs, but that is not the definition of a healthy or strong church. The measure of an effective ministry is the extent of equipping that takes place.

And the measure of edification, the measure of just much the church is built up, is not the membership roll or the attendance statistics. It is the measure of ministry done by all the members of the church.

Some of those things are obvious, others perhaps less obvious. Things like teaching. Leading. Organizing. Serving. Visiting. Praying. Encouraging. Encouraging. Helping. Giving. Cutting the grass. Preparing meals. Fixing things. Calling people on the phone. Administrative work. And I could go on and on. The point is, we are the most advanced in our growth as a church when the most people are active in being of usefulness to the rest of the body.

There are all sorts of statistics out there, like in the average church 10% of the people do 90% of the work, and I suppose that is probably accurate most of the time. But it certainly ought not to be. 10% of the people ought to do 10% of the work.

That's how my house is built. Each roofing truss that holds my roof holds an equal amount of weight. Each rafter holds a proportionate amount of weight. All the weight is not focused onto one point, because if that were the case, it would fail!

So it is in the church. So it is for my preaching and teaching, that I call you to service for the well-being of Christ's church. And that is what I'm doing. That is why I'm preaching about the church, calling you to love the church. For if you love the church, if you see rightly yourself as part of the church, then you be moved to labor and work for the building of the church.

So...is that how you see yourself?

For many of you, the answer is clearly and obviously, "Yes." Comparatively speaking, I believe that we are relatively healthy in this regard. There are a lot of you laboring for the good of the body in a lot of different ways. And that is greatly encouraging to me in my labors and calling as a pastor-teacher. May it be so all the more! That we "may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ."

That's the growth we should strive for. Not setting as a goal the growth of statistical increase. Not mere numbers, nor as the business world would say, "the bottom line." But that we grow up. Like a child proceeding through teenage years into young adulthood. The goal is that they grow up. And that must be the goal for,

III. THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. So, by God's grace, may we grow up. May we "grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ." May we become mature as a church.

Notice again, that doesn't necessarily mean large. This is not an excuse to exult in being small, nor does it reflect any desire that we as a church never become larger, for surely as we have studied, we ought to pray earnestly "that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ." We ought to pray that God would add to our number daily those who are being saved. I have preached about all those things. But our growth is to be measured not by numerical advances, but by the advancement and progress of maturity. And so, what is,

A. The definition of maturity. Here it is, v.13

So much is in that definition, that I can just barely touch upon it. First, the unity of the faith. And that is not at the expense of the truth, for unity that ignores the exposition of truth is a false unity. There is no unity unless we are well taught and well trained in the truth, as we'll see in just a moment in, v.14

So unity is a product of faithful teaching, faithful biblical exposition. Joined with the willingness to be of one mind, to join together with one common purpose and one common identity. Unity does not mean uniformity, as if we all think alike about everything, nor even that we will all come to agreement about all of the more important matters of the faith. But this is the goal to which we strive, not to dismiss any confessional declaration of what we believe, but to found our identity upon it.

Also a unity in the knowledge of the Son of God. That is to say, our unity is that we know and love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And we strive, above all else, that in all things he might be preeminent. So unless we find our unity centered in Jesus, we have no unity at all.

But in him, in the knowledge of Jesus, we can and are, indeed, one. That's what Paul means when he says that we become "a perfect man." Complete, finished, mature.

That's the goal. That's the expression of church growth. Maturity. And Paul fills in the definition of that maturity, we come "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

Wow. How's that for a goal.

Today, that is too intimidating for people. We don't live in an age of much maturity. We live in an age of silliness, foolishness, impulsiveness, and abject immaturity. And that is because we lost sight of this biblical objective of being transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ, that "we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

Today, the cry is for feeling good. And we make ourselves feel good by convincing ourselves that we are good. And when we are confronted with the reality of our own sins and our own immaturity, we either deny it or simply give in to the overwhelming despair of not doing anything about it.

So let me keep this objective before you, the goal of maturity. It isn't instant. It isn't easy. It doesn't just happen. It takes hard work and effort, and a zealous commitment to know Jesus Christ in a deeply personal and practical way.

And that is my job. Not to coddle those who act as if they are newborn infants, but equip you for the work of ministry that you might become mature!

And stable. That's what maturity is all about. Notice,

B. The demonstration of stability. v.14-15

I enjoy swimming in the ocean. I enjoy riding the waves, being tossed about, to and fro, carried about by such a tremendous power that is far greater than my own. But what a terrible thing that is when it describes your Christian life. What a terrible thing it is when your mind is so unstable as to be tossed to and fro.

Now, sometimes that means when I preach I have to speak harshly about error, dangerous errors that threaten your soul. Sometimes it means that the word must be taught patiently and diligently over a long period of time. But beloved, while it is not a godly attribute to be stubborn, it is a godly measure of maturity to be firm and stable in what you believe and how you live.

Church growth means that the church is stable! Church growth means that the members of the church are stable in their faith, confident of what they believe and sure and certain of the truth. Not that you should ever become unteachable, but that you are able to understand what it is the Bible teaches.

I've known people who have been in church all their lives, and know next to nothing about the Bible. They have never been taught, and woe to those false shepherds who leave their people so vulnerable. I have known people grievously, tragically, led astray with some aberrant wind of doctrine or by some trickery of men. And that deception is so often brought about as a well thought out conspiracy. Maturity, stability, church growth means that you recognize such dangers for what they are.

And, therefore, v.15 "...speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ."

Speaking the truth in love. That's the process. That's the method of church growth. That's the one and only step for church growth. Speaking the truth in love.

So don't be deceived by the wisdom of the world, that judges a small church as undesirable and a large church as successful. Don't be deceived by the wisdom of the world that says a church of 100 is twice as successful as a church of 50, and a church of 200 twice as successful as a church of 100. Beware of those who measure church growth by statistical benchmarks.

Rather, leave the statistics to God. And focus your attention not upon how many people might be here, but on how fully and faithfully you advance "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

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