How Do Churches Grow -- Part 1

This week I'm thinking through a subject that is popular among all church leadership. Church Growth is a topic that is worth hundreds of pages in books and journal articles, however, I'll just dedicated a few of my pages to it. And I'm shooting for four posts this week.

The first idea is adapted from Acts 2. The setting is the day of Pentecost and, with the coming of the promise of the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter preaches to thousands and three thousand come to Christ. The church is born, and has a miraculous growth.

This is a cool form of church growth...the coolest in fact. It would be awesome if this happened to us at SRC. Can you imagine, next week and we're pushing 3,021? That would be awsome. Not probable, but definately possible. This is what I heard Dr. Rhoden refer to as divine suddenness. It just happens suddenly. There are reports from around the country of churches that enter a season of suddeness when all of the sudden things seemed to miraculously expand. In every case including the Acts 2 model, I've heard some common things here they are. 1. Prayer. People were unified and praying for God to do His thing. 2. They did what they do, and He did what He does. In Acts the people only knew to gather in the upper room and pray. God orchestrated the events of the Pentecost Festival so thousands of people would be within ear shot of the group that day. We need to do what we do. God has given us a plan a unique design, and we are pursuing it. We have a vision for large groups, small groups and prayer groups. Our focus from now till the end of the year is in our large group, Sunday gatherings. In the first part of next year we'll be developing our small groups, we already have three meeting weekly. Then our prayer groups. That's our plan from God. That's what we're doing. As we do what we do, He'll do, what He does.

That's how churches grow -- Part 1

--Ben