I still hear a lot of talk about “growing our church.”  I must ask the question, “What is our purpose as a church?”  Is “church growth” really our purpose?  Having been a youth pastor, growing a church was not my calling, and I don’t believe it is any of our callings.  Once again I feel like we’re putting the cart before the horse.  Faithfulness.  Faithfulness is our calling.  We are called to remain faithful to God and His Word—when we do that, God will grow our churches for us.  In other words, if you take care of the quality of ministry, the quantity will take care of itself.  (Certainly, the Word calls us to Kingdom growth, and faithfulness to that, but that doesn’t always equate to “church” growth).  

 Why do I say this?  Well, for one, it’s easy to grow a church (or in my context, a youth group).  Just give people what they want—entertaining programs and stuff that makes them feel good.  But deep inside we know there’s got to be more than this.  We look at churches that we perceive are doing these things and see their problems—they are a mile wide, and inch deep and their leadership’s legs have so worn out that they are face down in that one-inch drowning.  A watered-down gospel makes for an easy drowning.  

 I think we all know this—we know the church should be growing and we want it to grow, but we aren’t willing to water it down.  We know it should be more.  If we know this, then we need to step out on faith and make it something more and let God handle the results.  That something more is simply being faithful to His call in His Word.  

 So, the question then is, “Are we, the average American church, being faithful?”  That is a convicting question to me because I see its implications.  The answer in my heart is a resounding NO.  I’m not trying to be judgmental of the American church or point any fingers.  The simple fact is that I’m as much a part of the problem as anyone, and at some point we all must come before God and say, “God, we’ve missed the point. Point us in the right direction and help us get it right that we might participate in the growth of your kingdom here and now.”  This isn’t one person’s or even one church’s problem—it’s a family (the whole community of believers) problem, and all problems have solutions.  

 So, are we being faithful?  I give two litmus tests that you can use to evaluate the faithfulness of your church community.

 1st, the Great Commandment:

 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…and love your neighbor as yourself.”           Matthew 22:37-40

 Who’s doing this?  Where are we doing this as a community in our individual churches?  Have we even defined what that looks like? What’s preventing us from this?  

I feel like we could use an interjection of I Corinthians 1:10-11

 10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.

 And Philippians 2:1-4

 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 

Show me a church united in mind and purpose, without divisions, focused on “lov[ing] your neighbor as yourself” and I’ll show you a Kingdom growth church.  

 Does that mean there won’t be occasionally disagreements on the application of purpose?  I doubt it.  Division and disagreement are not necessarily the same thing.  You can disagree with people and still be of the same mind and still be able to move forward.  Division suggests an attitude of “no compromise” between the parties.  It’s an attitude that says, “We have our way, and they have their way, and we can’t be reconciled between us.  This ends in a failure to launch.  

 Loving God is one thing (although a picture of loving Him with all our Heart, Soul and Mind would be worth discussing), but how are we loving our neighbors as ourselves.  Well, if I love myself enough to keep my body clean, eat healthy, exercise my body, clothe it, keep it warm, and keep it presentable, then one thing we could do is help others do just that.  When people struggling to make ends meet come to us, do we offer an opportunity to get a haircut, a shave, and a warm shower?  Would that not make them feel more human and acceptable?  Do we offer them healthy meals?  Do we offer them any kind of health services?  Do we offer them a clean set of clothes?  Do we offer them a place to get warm or to get out of the searing heat? We’re quick to give handouts, but slow to do the research and investigate what it would mean to give a hand up.  We like to pass the buck to other ministries or even the government, but is that really faithfulness to God’s Word?

 Providing others with counseling services or training opportunities might be possible too.  I know we are doing some things, but are we doing enough—is there ever enough?  Regardless, where have we defined this and worked to implement such love?  Where are we investing in this love—putting our money where our mouth is?

 I don’t believe too many people recognize this, but much of our political division in the United States is not because anything has changed in politics—politicians have been using us and pitting us against each other since the beginning of the idea of politics.  What has changed is the church has failed to fulfill its role to care for the orphan, the widow and the marginalized (James 1:26-27) and stand up for justice for all these peoples.  We’ve ceased being the good Samaritans and begun being the priest and the Levite with a myriad of new excuses.  We’ve ceased being the Sheep and have taken up the identity of the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46).  We’ve begun to be more focused, like the Pharisees, on following the legalities of God’s Word and worship that makes us feel good and lost focus on the Greatest Commandment. 

 I hear the naysayers already, “But that takes people?”  Yes, but more than that, it takes faith.  Either way it leads me to my second litmus test, The Great Commission:

 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”               Matthew 28:18-20 

 Are we doing this?  How do we know?  How do we evaluate success in this?  What is our strategy?  What was Jesus’?  Did He ever preach in a community without first meeting that community’s needs?  What does this say about our strategies? 

 I see believers, and I see baptism and I see teaching, but where are the disciples?  If we’re pulling teeth each year to fill committees, ministry positions, mission services, and pastorates, what does that say about our process of discipling?  

 I feel like problems come along and we throw our hands up in the air and say, “I don’t understand why it’s not working anymore.”  We may be doing what we’ve always done and that may have worked then, but people in their homes are NOT doing what they’ve always done. We have to respond to culture—not in fear, but in power, hope, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And I DON’T mean adopting culture, I mean adapting with culture.  

 The real irony here is that the answer to not only drawing people to Christ but drawing people to discipleship IS the Great Commandment (our first litmus test).  When we are loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we put His will before our own.  When we put His will before our own, we listen, we align, we become more than we are on our own.  When we are loving our neighbor as ourselves, we put their needs on par with our own.  We listen, and we learn to minister to them where they are in a language they understand. 

 We aren’t keeping new people or reaching non-believers because we’re not paying attention to culture. People don’t want to “know” more, they don’t want to be taught, they don’t want information, and they don’t want us to tell them how to be better people.  The beauty is that they already recognize that knowledge isn’t the answer. 

 They don’t want to be taught about God, they want to meet Him, experience Him.  They don’t want to be shown how to be better people, they want to experience a power that makes them better people.  

 And it is in these very people, that have such experiences, that testimony springs forth and lights a fire that spreads through an entire community.  They long to see a faith that is real—that makes people’s lives real! A faith that makes people different. A faith that gives people purpose and meaning in their lives—that can be seen through our Love for God and our Love for them.  Knowledge informs that faith, but experience is what makes it real.

 But to get to that kind of faith, and provide that kind of experience, our target CANNOT be people—our target MUST be Christ.  Our services CANNOT be designed to draw crowds—they MUST be designed to draw the Holy Spirit.  To get to that kind of faith, we must first love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  The horse, the power to move, the power to pull, the power to change is Christ—it must be before the cart.   He is the cause, we are the effect.  

 Once we put Christ in the proper place—out in front—and begin drawing people in, only then is it time to make disciples.  

 If we take a look at the Great Commission it outlines how to make those disciples—by “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

 What does it mean to be “baptized?” Is it primarily a ceremonial public cleansing representing one’s dying to one’s self and so being reborn to a new life in Christ, or might it be more than that?  Jesus makes sure to command us to not just baptize people into God, nor just into Himself, nor just into the Holy Spirit, but into the complete Trinity—the whole person in three that is God Almighty.  

 When He says, “make disciples of all nations,” He doesn’t say to do that by preaching against their brokenness.  He doesn’t say to do that by preaching about God’s wrath and anger and justice.  He doesn’t say to do that by preaching at all.  He says to do that by baptizing—literally immersing people into the overflowing power of God the Creator, into the cleansing sacrificial love of Christ, into the thirst-quenching presence of the Holy Spirit.  

 We’ve assumed for so long that Jesus was glossing over the process of teaching people about their own sinfulness, God’s justice, Jesus’ sacrifice, the Spirit’s willingness, and their opportunity to pray “the prayer of salvation,” skipping straight on to the moment of baptism.  But what if He wasn’t?  What if baptism isn’t the result, but the cause?  I’m not talking about stepping into waters and getting literally wet before belief.  I’m suggesting that Baptism to Him was so much more.  Baptism wasn’t an event after confessing faith.  It was the whole process.  Baptism was the whole process of the Great Commission culminating in the transformation of a person into a new creation, and He intentionally focusses on the word “baptism” to give us an image of immersion.  It’s as if He’s saying to drown them in the power and love and presence of God by your own living out the Great Commission, so that the result is a new disciple.  

 And this isn’t primarily through head knowledge, as we so often lean on.  Instead, it is primarily an experience of God.  I’m not talking about some mushy-gushy emotional momentary tearful event that has immediate impact but little long-term transformation.  I’m talking about an undeniable transformative movement in the very soul of a person in which the Spirit of God moves so powerfully that a person is forever planted in the fertile soil of the Kingdom of God.  

 How do we do that?  By Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving them as ourselves.  When we do these two things, people literally meet Jesus in us.  They literally experience the power of God working through us.  They literally hear the Holy Spirit speaking through us.  They don’t just learn some abstract truth from a book.  They feel the power of the Word alive.  

 And once immersed, their desire, as stated in the Beatitudes, will turn to a “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:1-12)  It is then that they will be receptive, and we can teach them how to live that life out in Christ through obedience.  

 But I must ask, are WE there yet?  Do WE “hunger and thirst for righteousness?”  Are WE still immersed?  Can WE take them where we are not?  I find it helpful to do my own spiritual inventory sometimes to consider my own faith and relationship to God to determine if my heart is truly in the right place to immerse others in that movement towards discipleship.   

 So, before we get to discerning a strategy for discipleship, we need to do a personal spiritual inventory.  I like to use the ABCs:  

 What does my/our Attitude reveal about my/our Spiritual condition?

What does my/our Behavior reveal about my/our Spiritual condition?  

What does my/our Conversation reveal about my/our Spiritual condition?  

Do we have an attitude of fear?  “Oh no, people are leaving our church, what’s happening and how can we fix it?”  

Do we have an attitude of resentment? “People are leaving our church, I work so hard and what thanks does it get me?”  

Do we have an attitude of regret?  “People are leaving, what could I have done differently?”  

Do we have an attitude of selfishness?  “People are leaving.  It’s their loss.  Everything here is exactly like I need and want it to be.  We don’t need them.  They never did anything for us anyways.”

Or

Do we have an attitude of power?   “God’s got this—if we remain faithful, He will fix it.”

Do we have an attitude of Thanksgiving?  “God’s got this—let’s be thankful for the ways He continues to bless us.”

Do we have an attitude of peace?  “God’s got this—we’ve made some mistakes, but thanks be to God He is faithful when we have not been, and as we corporately seek His forgiveness in humility, He will surely turn things around in our community.”  

Do we have an attitude of selflessness?  “God show me if I am part of the problem and how I can grow to be a part of the solution.  Where did I miss the mark?  How could I have been a better servant?  How can I love them as myself?”  

 What are we dwelling on?  What drives us?  Where is our hope?  Where is our faith?  Where are we truly seeking God’s guidance?  Am I suggesting we ignore those emotions of fear or inadequacy, resentment, or regret? No, but we have to recognize our failures and losses, humble ourselves before the Lord and continue in Grace.  And we have to ask the question “Where is our attitude a reflection of having the same mind?” 

Do we behave out of fear? 

Do we behave out of resentment?  

Do we behave out of regret?  

Do we behave as if we’re worn out and exhausted?  

Do we behave out of selfishness or self-centeredness?   

Or 

Is God continually making all things new?  

Do we believe that and how does that affect our behavior?  

Are we loving God and loving others in our behavior?  

Do we understand the difference between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy?  Do we comprehend Jesus’ focus on sins of omission (omitting or not doing what He called us to do) versus our focus on the sins of commission (doing that which the Bible tells us not to do)?

Is our conversation expressing fear?  

Resentment?  

Regret?  

Selfishness/self-centeredness?  

Or 

Love?  

Hope?  

Vision?  

Power?  

Service?  

Are our words directed by the Holy Spirit?  If not, why are we speaking in the first place?  Out of the mouth flows the heart.  What does that say about the condition of our hearts?  

 If we stop and examine these things we can see where we as individuals and as a community have put the cart before the horse.  It is in the individual that revival within a church begins—may it begin in us.  When our attitude is aligned with Christ, when our behavior is aligned with Christ, when our conversation is aligned with Christ, then we will see change and real growth not only in ourselves, but in the community as a whole as people are drawn to the light we reflect.  

 So, how do we align ourselves corporately with Christ and so develop a strategy for discipleship?  How do we align our attitude, our behavior, and our conversation?  I would suggest four main things.  

 First, we must align ourselves individually.  

 Much of this stems from reflecting on a passage from A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God.  In it he writes, 

 Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion, that the “us” of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish “I.”  Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?  They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.  So, one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.  Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.  The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier.  The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life.

 Secondly, we must align ourselves according to the passage we read earlier in I Corinthians 1:10-11 (which is an alignment to each other)

 10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.

 The key is the same mind and same purpose.  

We must have those difficult conversations:

Why do we exist as a ministry?  

Are we a church-based family-supported ministry (which is how we currently act more often than not in the local church) or are we a family-based church-supported ministry (which is typically considered a more effective strategy of family discipleship)? 

What is our purpose or theology of ministry, our philosophy of ministry, our vision, our values, and ultimately our strategy?  

 With no clearly stated purpose, or at least no clear driving purpose, it’s no wonder we are where we are. 

 Purpose creates or assumes identity, goals, direction, values, and vision.  It immediately communicates what success looks like and empowers people to move in that direction.  It communicates meaning within all of what we do—which should be moving in the direction of accomplishing that purpose.  These things hash out and define what faithfulness to God’s Word looks like.  They help us see how we are in one mind and one purpose.  

 Think of the church in terms of an individual.  If I feel like I have no purpose in life, my life has no meaning and I wander aimlessly through life with no direction, no motivation, and no hope to accomplish anything of any importance, why would I expect to live purposefully?  Why would I expect to move in any particular direction?  Why would I ever get motivated? Why would I ever expect to accomplish anything?  

 Hashing these things out also creates expectation, and when people understand their expectations, and believe in those purposes, they reach for them and often accomplish them.  

 Continuing along this line of looking at the church as an individual, we can look at the human body for a helpful analogy:  

·       Love must be the heart of what we do and provides the foundation for our purpose (Mt 22).

·       Purpose (Why do we do what we do?) is the DNA dictating design to what we do and permeating all that we are.  

·       Theology (What does God’s Word say about what we are to be and do?) is the nervous system and brains of what we do providing power and instruction.  

·       Philosophy (How do we think it needs to be accomplished?) is our gut—the instinct about how it needs to be done.  

·       Vision is obviously our eyes looking into the future to dream about what we can accomplish.  

·       Values (What do we value in our relationship with Christ that we need to pass on through the generations?) are the circulatory system connecting everything together, providing the nutrients to all the systems.  

·       Strategy (How we plan to make this happen programmatically?) is the skeleton providing structure to accomplish our purpose through programming.

·       Program is the skin putting what we believe in the flesh. 

·       Cultural relevance is the mouth communicating God’s plan to an alien world.

·       Evaluation is the liver and kidneys sorting out all the stuff that’s not necessary.

·       Evolution (How do we apply what we’ve recognized through evaluation to constantly improve what we are doing?) is the body’s growth towards maturity.  

 Third, we must align ourselves corporately by communicating these things to the congregation and continue those conversations on a regular basis.  We must keep it on hand and refer to it often.  It has to be in plain sight as a constant reminder bringing constant hope.  It cannot just be written down and stuck in some folder on some shelf—it must be made alive, something we eat, drink and believe.  My basketball coach used to tell me, 

 “If you want to be good at anything, you have to invest in it in virtually every area of your life.  You should carry a basketball everywhere you go.  You should eat with it, sleep with it, dream about it, and work with it every spare moment you have.  When you become one with it, then you will reach greatness.”

 Thinking on it, I wonder how my basketball coach ‘got it’ better than most people in the church.  

 Fourth, we must align ourselves with an attitude of openness to growth.  We must create a culture of expecting growth in the evolution of our strategies and programs.  Once we have accomplished the hard work of establishing our purpose as a community, we must continually evaluate it, and the strategies it births, to discern their continued faithfulness to God and His Word.   Strategy must grow as we grow and adapt as culture adapts—it must not become stagnant or “tradition” for the sake of tradition.  Part of the strategy should be regular review—not just to adapt it to meet changing needs, and changing hearts, but to refresh it in our minds and hearts.  To remind us that God has given us greater purpose and greater hope and that we are working towards something greater—something so much bigger than a church—a Kingdom of Heaven.

 All of these things lend to build a healthier foundation.  As in one of Christ’s parables, why would God give us more to manage if we are not managing what we have with complete faithfulness.  And what kind of foundation are we building on—the rock of Christ or the sandy foundation of church growth models that often take a cookie cutter approach to ministry based on someone else’s experience in a different context.  When we have a strong foundation laid and ready based on faithfulness, God will grow us.  Until then, it is up to us to better understand how to lay that foundation and get to work at it.  To do that we have to keep the horse before the cart.