Chuck and I have talked a long time about an alternative way to “do church.” I tried to explain to my students in one class at the Bible College (in Botswana), that the church grew exponentially in the first couple of centuries, as long as it was based in homes. After congregations started building themselves structures whose unique purpose was the Sunday worship meeting, church growth slowed considerably. One student objected that the church only started erecting buildings after they could afford to, and that it was just a coincidence that the church growth slowed significantly at the same time the church began to put its money into brick and mortar.
Not that I would advocate tearing down existing church buildings and favor putting all congregations out into homes, but just think about this: if a church in a town of 100,000 has the resources to build a building (on faith) that will seat 15,000, they have just excluded 185,000 in the community from attending their church. However, if that same church begins to establish home-based congregations and teach them to observe all that Jesus commanded us (as in Matthew 28:19), the entire population of the town could become congregations and they could all worship in the houses that have already been built there! We could release the church to grow to 100% of the population.
God is good. We want to glorify Him in every way that we can.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment