John Cripps asked an elder in the US why the church where he was a member was growing. He replied, “When we stopped pounding the pulpit on the issues we started to grow.” The elder also said that the elders were divided on the subject of divorce and remarriage, so they don’t teach on that. They let each member make up his own mind on the subject.
An elder’s wife wrote me, “____ preached a hard-hitting lesson yesterday morning on marriage in preparation for the withdrawal of one of our brethren who has entered into an adulterous marriage. A few of the brethren are struggling with this. Weak brethren want to ‘live and let live’ when it comes to sin. Sad.”
My grandson told me that a few years ago a friend of his preached for a non-institutional church in Los Angeles. The elders invited him to move there and work with them, but they said, “You must agree not to preach against abortion.”
Question: Are these churches going to grow? The answer is that they might as far as numbers are concerned. But is this real growth?
Let’s note the attitude of Paul. He said to the elders of the church at Ephesus: “And when they had come to him, he said to them: “You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews; how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house” (Acts 20:18-20).
And consider what Paul wrote to Timothy: “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:1-5).
In both of these instances, Paul focused on the Word of God being preached, not the numerical responses to the gospel or the contribution collected each week. It’s easy to get fixated on these metrics to determine whether or not we’re “doing good” in God’s sight and forget about holding fast to the pattern of sound words (2 Timothy 1:13).
When Jesus wrote to the seven churches of Asia, saying that He knew their works, He didn’t write one thing about whether a church was growing in number. He wrote a great deal about their faithfulness, or lack thereof, in life and doctrine. He told the church at Ephesus that He was remove their lampstand if they didn’t do the “first works” (Revelation 2:5). Did the “first works” include evangelism? I’m sure it did. But it also included fidelity to pure doctrine (even doctrine that we may be growing in or divided on) along with zealous, loving service to the saints and the community (Galatians 6:10).
Could it be that many of us have the wrong definition of success? Let’s not fall into the trap of measuring ourselves by ourselves, but by the Word of God. Bringing Christians to maturity and holiness in issues such as abortion, dancing, drinking, gambling, immodesty, LGBTQ+ issues, and drug use is growing in Christ (Ephesians 4:14-16). And neglecting them because we fear the repercussions may bring people in the door, but it won’t help them get to heaven.
Adapted from Paul K. Williams