Another verse I don't like

Here's another Bible verse or five that I don't like:

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

-Luke 9:23-27

It is obvious to me that whoever said this needed to get some sound marketing advice about how to effectively grow a religion. And possibly find a good backing band.

Still a good idea, a few days on.

A few days ago, I mentioned Peter Jensen's good idea.

It's still a good idea; one of the best. Giving a free Bible to people in Sydney Diocese has all sorts of potential to grow the church and bring glory to God.

Most important reason: It’s the word of God alone that grows the church—that’s basic. So looked at from a theological angle, to give people the word of God is to give the hope of bringing them into the church family and most importantly, relationship with the Lord Jesus.

Then when you look at it from the point of view of giving a gift, it’s a good thing to do also. It establishes friendly contact with strangers. It spurs the gift giver into making that contact and building on it. It is the best sort of gift, because there are no strings attached, no expectation of receiving any payment or gift in return, and if used for its intended purpose will give eternal life.

Arguing the economics of the operation really is a secondary question, especially when the hoped-for outcome is somewhat imponderable. You throw a lot of seed around in full knowledge that some of it will fall on the path, or rocky or thorny ground. If the seed you were throwing around was better child-care programmes, provision of car-parking spaces, or amped-up music, you might well think twice about using such things as tactics to grow the church.

In comparison to alternatives, I personally could handle the idea of 99 mulched Bibles for one that was read and responded to. Mulch is good recycling anyway, and imagine the bad uses the paper might have gone to otherwise.

And the giving of the Bible in no way precludes you from other ways of speaking the truth in love, or living out what you believe by showing kindness in other ways.

I would also like to think that certain areas of Sydney Dio would receive priority attention in this project. Let’s doorknock or letterbox poorer and Muslim areas before we do the leafy North Shore. They can buy their own mulch, and perhaps even have money to spare to think of buying Bibles to support the mission of the church in poorer areas.

Church growth, gospel growth and church decimation

I like church growth as much as the next man. Who wouldn't? If it's your own church, you love to see people coming under the sound of the gospel, and even if we don't like large numbers, that is easily solved by taking 30 people out of the congregation and using them to start a new church when things get too big.

But the only sort of church growth that is of interest to Christians is gospel growth. Acts 6:7, speaking about the booming church in Jerusalem, encapsulates this idea beautifully:

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

So the question naturally arises, can you have gospel growth without church growth? After all, if the word of God is going out, you would expect churches to be growing in size, wouldn't you?

No.

Here is Isaiah hearing what the result of his gospel ministry will be:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and the LORD removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.

A dreadful shock, really. The word of God is preached faithfully, according to God's instruction, and the result of this word going out is a judgement that results in devastation. Even verse 13, which speaks of a remaining stump, pictures a stump that has been doused in petrol and then burned, just to be on the safe side.

Those who are church growth afficionadoes (CGAs for short) may well respond that this is a unique event in the history of Israel, bearing no relevance to the situation of our growing churches today.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But it is hardly unique.

Jesus picks up this very passage to describe his own ministry in Mark 4 and elsewhere. After Jesus' death and resurrection, Paul applies it to his own ministry in Acts 28, and uses it more broadly in Romans 11 to describe the current state of gospel ministry amongst Jews and Gentiles.

The one comfort CGAs may still draw from this is that the devastating judgement that accompanies gospel growth appears to be linked in all these passages—Old Testament, Gospel and Epistle—to the particular sin of the Jewish people.

So it may well be that the sin of the Jewish people is specific to them, and has no relevance whatsoever to the Gentiles. Indeed, in this biblical scenario, the Gentiles end up benefitting from the sin of the Jews, because Jewish rejection of the gospel means that the preachers of gospel truth go on to speak to the Gentiles about the salvation and restoration that they can find in Jesus.

Unfortunately, the sin of the Jews doesn't appear specific to them.

Indeed, in the early chapters of Isaiah, their sin is greed, idolatry, materialism, addiction to alcohol, complacency, apathy and lack of concern for widows, orphans and foreigners, religious hypocrisy, failure of leadership, haughtiness amongst women and a murderous spirit amongst men.

Perhaps it will be OK.

Perhaps when God pays close attention to people in London, Durham, Pittsburgh, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Johannesburg, Singapore, and Perth, he will not discover greed, idolatry, materialism, addiction to alcohol, complacency, apathy and lack of concern for widows, orphans and foreigners, religious hypocrisy, failure of leadership, haughtiness amongst women and a murderous spirit amongst men.

On the other hand, he may discover just these things. And if so, we should be very anxious when we hear about gospel growth, because if the gospel grows as it did in Isaiah 6, then it may well mean not church growth but church decimation.

A biblical, Pentecostal, mega-church?

In this post I was racking my brain, trying to think of examples of really big churches in the Bible and came up with the one at Sinai in Exodus 19, 600 000 men plus women and children. In the comments, Michael K promptly suggested the Pentecostal mega-church in Acts 2. I dismissed this as being, really, a church of 12 plus a few friends, who ran a successful impromptu (pneuma-prompted?) evangelistic rally.

But I was wrong, as Acts 2:41-47 clearly shows:

41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
42   And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

By Acts 4:4 the mega-church has grown to 5000 men, plus women and children, and is described in ideal terms in Acts 4:32-35

32  Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Even in Acts 5:14 growth continues. "And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women." And Acts 6:7 says "...the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith."

This last reference is fascinating, because the growth that Luke highlights here is not so much numerical growth as growth of "the word of God".

So I am going to eat my words here, thanks to Michael's observation. I am aware of one successful megachurch in the Bible. It grows solely in response to systematic biblical exposition (the Old testament, to be precise), highlighted by Luke's editorial comment of Acts 6:7 that "the word of God continued to increase." The sermons we are aware of are all, without exception, expositions of Old Testament texts (Acts 2:14-36, Acts 3:12-24, Acts 4:8-12, Acts 4:23-31, and the longest one of all, Acts 7:2-56).

This church lasts until Acts 8:2, when it is disbanded by persecution. Nothing like it arises in the rest of the New Testament.

So I am forced to reconsider my earlier suggestion. It is possible for a church to grow to greater than 1000 and not be of the anti-Christ. Such a church will be founded only and solely on systematic exposition of the Old Testament, to which we can add the exposition of the inspired New Testament texts.

Car parking, comfortable seating, good toilet facilities, a well-run creche, a large building, and music of any sort would appear to be optional extras. Social welfare programmes are advisable.

And if God decides not to repeat the one New Testament example of a mega-church that we have in our present church experience, then our answer is to be thankful for what God has given us, keep preaching his word, and wait patiently for the mega-church that goes under the alternative name of "the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven" (Hebrews 12:23)

Large churches

All the evidence that I'm aware of suggests that individual congregations above the size of 1000 are of the antichrist. At least in Australia. I suppose in the US or Korea things may be different.

Craig Schwarze has a discussion going on about it here.

Biblically speaking, the only really large church I am aware of is the one that met at Sinai in Exodus 19—600 000 men or so plus women and children (referred to as the 'church of the Lord' in Deuteronomy 5:22). It was a very big church, although of course any mega-church leader worth their salt would scoff at such numbers today.

Be that as it may, they all without exception heard the voice of the LORD through his personally selected preacher, and all without exception died in the wilderness for their disobedience.

So I don't know if I'm being untheological here, but it's the small church for me. Anything above two hundred starts getting ridiculous.