Lack of Evangelism:
There is no doubt that until a church has a heart for the lost, the lost will see the church as having no heart for them. As I have written before, a church can never grow until it is willing to go. When the lost are not coming to the church the church must be going to the lost and this is the model we see Jesus using when He was speaking about leaving the 99 to seek the one that was lost in Luke 15:4-7 "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?
And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." That one sinner who repents must be told that they have offended a holy God and must repent and trust in the Savior but they'll never be able to do that unless they are told.
Paul may have been the greatest missionary to have ever lived and he didn't sit and wait and expect the lost to come to the churches. He wrote "For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent" (Rom 10:13-15a). They will never hear unless someone goes and tells them because as Paul wrote "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17)? Charles Spurgeon once said that "Everyone is either a missionary or an imposter." Pew potatoes that never leave the church but are only interested in getting into holy huddles are sinning the sin of omission; the great omission, instead of obeying the Great Commission of going into all the world to make disciples (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). This commission is given to all believers and it's an imperative command but the sad fact is that only 1 in 10 believers will ever actively share their faith with at least one other person in their entire lives.
Church Growth is the Church's Responsibility?
Wrong! There is so much frustration at times in churches because they are not growing. Perhaps they are preaching the gospel that is directly from the Word of God and maybe they're evangelizing the lost and have an active Outreach program. Maybe they are also highly visible in the community where they're being the hands, mouth and feet of Jesus Christ. Even if a church is doing all of this and they are increasingly becoming frustrated because they are not growing, the church leadership thinks that they're failing, but there's something that they're missing. It is not their responsibility to grow the church it is people's response to God's ability, even though it is the church's responsibility to seek the lost and share the gospel.
Jesus clearly shows this in many Scriptures in the Gospel of John like in John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day." Let's break this down to see what Jesus is actually saying. "No man can" means that it is not humanly possible for any man at any time to "come to [Jesus]" which means that it's not possible that any man or woman can come to Jesus at all unless this happens; "the Father who sent me draws him."
To put this verse in another way; No one can ever possibly come to Jesus without the Father first drawing him but the word used for "draw" is a bad translation because it is the Greek word "helkō" which means "to drag." This Greek word is the same word used when Paul and Silas were dragged to jail so if we used the same translation that was used in John 6:44 we would see that "Paul and Silas were drawn to jail" or "wooed" to jail or "enticed, coaxed" or whatever else you might want to use. Can you see how ridiculous that is?
When churches take the pressure off of themselves, get out into the community perhaps they can relax and leave the results up to God because God is the one Who draws men and women to Christ because the Word of God says that: "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47) and "the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith" (Acts 6:7) while "more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number" (Acts 5:14) and "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day" (Acts2:41) and there were still yet "many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand" (Acts 4:4).
Every one of these verses about the explosive church growth in the Book of Acts proves that God is the causative factor is saving men, women, and children so we must preach the gospel, seek the lost, and then trust God and leave the results up to Him.
You cannot force the hand of God any more that you could save yourself (Eph 2:8-9).
Weak Leadership
When I came to the church I am pastor of now, I came to help them create an Outreach program. They had no evangelism going on, they had no curriculum to speak of in Sunday school, they had no structure for supporting the shut-ins, the widows, visiting the sick, and keeping in touch with members who were now residents in the local nursing home. The deacons were not doing what their office called for them to do. There was no Outreach coordinator. There was no discipling of one another. There were no mentoring programs and in fact, there was no true leadership at all. What was sorely needed was to train members in leadership skills and make assessments on what each of the leaders strengths were. We needed to find out what each member had skills and desires in and match them to the positions of leadership that fit them the best. One book that I highly recommend for pastors is Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. I went through this book and used three powerful sections called Investing in Your Strengths, Maximizing Your Team, and Understanding Why People Follow. There are sections that help leaders plug into their heart's desires and then match those natural skills and abilities, and talents to what they had strengths in and then assign them to whatever positions that seemed to be the best fit for each of them. We found out who was the best youth leader, who was a natural Outreach coordinator and so on. They were reluctant at first but after a time, they began to catch a vision and a church with no leadership skills and no vision is destined to bump around in the dark aimlessly.
Mentoring and Discipleship
I believe that every Paul needs a Timothy and every Timothy needs a Paul. That is, everyone needs to be a mentor to someone and everyone needs to be mentored. I had a mentor when going through seminary and this retired pastor is still my mentor. Every mentor needs to pour into a man or woman the experience and knowledge that they have acquired in their life, often through the school of hard knocks but without their pouring into someone's life, they only accumulated knowledge for themselves and the Body of Christ is to grow up together into the fullness of Christ. It's like the Dead Sea. There is no outlet from the Dead Sea, therefore it is dead but on the other hand the Sea of Galilee has an outlet and a resource. It takes in water from the Jordan River but is also fed by fresh underground springs and the lake is the largest freshwater lake in Israel and has been called a sapphire in an emerald setting. The Dead Sea is also fed by the Jordan River but has no outlet so it continually builds up sediments and huge deposits of salt make it void of life. One has sufficient and consistent intake (the Sea of Galilee) but the other has no outlet and is not fit for fish or drinking (the Dead Sea). In reality, the Sea of Galilee is not really a sea but a large lake; a rich source for life having a continual source of fresh water and the Dead Sea is stagnant and lifeless because it has no outlet. The same principle applies for Christians who only take in rich resources but don't have an outlet. The object lesson here is that every Sea of Galilee needs a source (a mentor) and an outflow (someone to mentor); otherwise it ends up dead and stagnant (like the Dead Sea) and is of little use for others.
Self-Focused
A church that is self-focused does not have an outward focus; therefore it's all about them! I know that as a pastor, they will never lead until I take the first step in leading. We had some of our church members go into the nursing home because they reached a point where they couldn't take care of themselves so I thought, if they can't go to the church, I'll take the church to them. That's what I did. We went outside of the church to bring the church to them and in the process we had the chance to expand our Outreach program by witnessing to the residents,
the residents family members, and the staff. We also began collecting clothing and school supplies and talked to the local schools about this (prior to the end of the school year) and set up a school supply giveaway just before the start of school for those who were unable to afford school supplies. We also had the chance to tell them a little about ourselves and our children's ministry and youth programs. If your church went out of existence, would anyone notice? If the answer to that is no, then you have not made yourself visible and an aid to the community in which your church is located. Focus on others and you'll take the focus off of yourselves.
Conclusion
Prayer is vital, of course, to church growth but we must understand that God is really the true evangelist and the church is not responsible for saving the souls of men, women, and children. The church must also have a vision and be developing leadership skills. Also, the church should be actively involved in growing one another through a vital mentoring program where mentors and mentee's are matched and then take these growing believers outside of the church and get their eyes off self and onto the needs of others. We are called the Body of Christ for good reason and since Jesus is the Head of the Church, He expects us to be His hands, mouth, and feet here on earth. If you are missing
any or all of these elements, then you are inhibiting church growth and the expansion of the kingdom of God and also failing to fully glorify God and God is always interested in bringing glory to His Great Name. Amen?
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