Tag: The Church

All Together Now

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Growing churches often encounter growing pains. That’s only natural, but unless we know how to successfully navigate them, they can prove to be real impediments to seeing that growing momentum continue. God is doing a work right now at this church, and we are seeing and experiencing growth in many exciting ways. With that in mind, we are having a conversation about potential growing pains for us as church and how to navigate them well. Last time we talked about the essential nature of worship and how it can provide a strong foundation for sustainable growth. This week we are talking about how God designed the church to work. Let’s dive in together.

All Together Now

I am not a car guy. Never have been. I really don’t have any level of mechanic skills at all. Well, that’s not totally fair. I can do a few things. I can start the car. I have that one down pretty well. I know how to check the oil. I know how to change an air filter. A tire too. Noah and I worked together with a couple of YouTube videos to install a backup camera on his car. But when it comes to the engine and its operation I’ve got nothing. Not a single thing. I mean, I know the basic theory of what’s happening, but when it comes to what the various parts are, how they work, and what to do when they don’t, I might as well be looking at a jet engine. 

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:18

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“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The church has a bit of a bad rap. Some of that we’ve earned over years of hard work. Much of it is unfair thanks to the equally hard work of critics who range from ignorant to bigoted to hurt and vengeful. Whatever the precise reason, though, the church in America and in the cultural West more generally isn’t what it once was. This trend started in earnest a couple of generations ago, but over the last generation it has accelerated to a sociologically rapid pace. Yet while there have been folks variously cheering and mourning this decline depending on which side of the line they fall on, some recent cultural trends backed by a growing body of research is pointing to a potential need for the ones celebrating and the ones mourning to change sides. Let’s talk for a few minutes this morning about the cultural comeback of Christianity.

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Practicing for the Real Thing

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Growing is hard. Sometimes it hurts. It means things won’t or even can’t be the same as they were before. But growing is also necessary. Things that aren’t growing are slowly dying. This is true about our bodies. It’s true about organizations. It’s true about the church. When the church is growing, we often experience growing pains. This week and next we are talking about a couple of key foundation points that can help us navigate those challenges should they come.

Practicing for the Real Thing

Do you remember having growing pains when you were a kid? Those were awful. I remember weeks when my legs would just hurt. I hadn’t done anything. There was nothing that I could do to stop it. It didn’t really keep me from doing anything. But they hurt. I’m not sure about a precise medical reason for growing pains, but I can offer a layman’s explanation that seems to make a lot of sense. When you are getting taller, everything has to stretch. Skin gets pulled tighter as it expands. Bones get longer. Blood vessels are lengthening to match. Lung capacity is expanding to push oxygen to all the new boundaries of your body. Everything is getting yanked and pulled and stretched out. I don’t know about you, but I feel that kind of discomfort when I try to touch my toes. Now, imagine a period of several months where your whole body is doing that whether you want it to or not. But instead of the stretch ending after a few seconds, it just keeps going. 

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 16:19

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“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

About halfway through Jesus’ earthly ministry, He took His disciples on a little field trip. They went deep into some nearby Gentile territory to a region that was about as pagan as it could be. It was pagan, and it had been pagan for a very long time. They were near the city of Caesarea Philippi, named both for the Emperor as well as the grandson of Herod the Great who ruled over the region. They were not far from the site of an ancient shrine to the Greek god Pan, located in a cave that was believed to be one of a handful of entrances to the underworld, also known as the “Gates of Hades.” There, when the distractions of home were about as far from their minds as they could be, Jesus asked them a question: Who do you say that I am? This led into a key confession from Simon whose name was there changed to Peter. Even more importantly than that, Jesus revealed to them His plans to leave behind an institution that would carry on His work when He departed from them. This institution would be known as the church, and this is perhaps the most foundational passage in the Scriptures as far as shaping our understanding of what the church is and what it should be doing. You could write a whole book on these few verses, but today, I want to explore just one idea Jesus introduced and an implication it has for what the church should look like today.

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Digging in Deeper: Ephesians 6:4

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“Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’ve long been a numbers guy. Numbers just stick in my head. Random numbers. And they don’t go away. Sometimes it’s pretty handy like at my former church, before I was really using a cell phone all that much, when I had almost half the phone numbers of the members memorized. Because I’m a numbers guy, I love looking at data. It doesn’t matter too much what the data is, but sociological research data is some of my favorite to digest, especially when it’s on a topic I care about and from a research outfit whose methodology I trust. I’ve had the chance recently to review some research from the Barna organization into the world of people who are spiritually curious. Let me highlight a couple of things I’ve noticed along the way.

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