June 22, 2010
Expanding vs. Planting
It’s interesting that we seem to have a different standard for growing the church in the US than we have for growing it in a foreign country. On the mission field we want to plant as many churches as possible, but when it comes to the American church our business and marketing juices kick in. We think in terms of expanding churches rather than planting them. Certainly God’s kingdom can grow in either case, but I sometimes wonder if by building big churches we’ve somehow missed the big picture.
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Gail;
-----I wonder if by working to plant churches and expand churches we’ve somehow missed the simple picture. I don’t find Scripture directing us to plant or expand churches. The Great Commission is used as that pretext, yet it directs us to make disciples and teach them. That is far different from making churches and expanding them. The Great commission is about disciples, not churches. Indeed, there are Scriptures touching upon the concept of church planting and expansion. But they are about the carrying of the Gospel into new areas and teaching the disciples there. Paul never spoke of his mission to plant churches. He always wrote of a mission to carry the Gospel to where it had not been preached before. You may wonder if differentiating between planting and expanding churches and preaching the gospel and teaching disciples is hair splitting. Let me demonstrate that it is hair combing, not splitting.
-----Preaching the gospel is about people. It is preached so they will know what they did not yet know. Even though it might be done before a large crowd as Peter did it on the Day of Pentecost, it is still the presentation of relevant information to individuals for their decision making. And that is the point of spreading the Gospel - so that yet another person might come to know the Lord and receive eternal life. It is about his soul, his heart and mind, his eternal destiny. It is about him. If preaching the gospel were about making churches, then we might just dispense with its challenges to the hearer, magnify its perks, and bring together a bunch of people to make an organization, caring less about what they might believe than about what they might do for the organization.
-----Now, don’t get me wrong. Paul did go around appointing elders, and he did write regarding how things should be done in the church. But examining carefully his letters to Timothy and Titus, we again find that Paul addressed these topics to enable the proper teaching, serving, and edifying of the saints who were meeting together. The affairs of the church were the interactions and interrelationships of these people, because the people are the church. The strength of the church was the people’s godly behavior towards one another, and the growth of the church was their maturing into manhood, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). In all aspects of the New Testament, we find not a church for the people, but people who are the church. So to think the organizational instructions of the Word are about the church rather than the serving of the believers is to look over the head of the person you serve and serve your pride of serving rather than actually serving him.
-----I have never seen a farmer haul mature corn stalks into his field and plant them for the fruit of the harvest. I have always seen them till dusty, empty dirt and then mark furrows into it. I have seen them drop seeds between the furrows, then trickle water down them. Soon the corn grows, and the ears appear. He did not make the corn grow. He simply did what the corn needed for growing. God gave us instructions in the Word on plowing and marking and planting and watering. But when it comes to the numerical growth, as Acts 2:47 makes clear, the Lord adds the numbers. We don’t. We simply preach to people, teach them, and behave towards them. It is He who makes churches of us.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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