• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sermo Humilis

Humble Speech

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Who we Are Instead / When Gospel Growth Makes a Mess

When Gospel Growth Makes a Mess

December 24, 2020 By David Trounce Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

When Gospel Growth Makes a Mess - Sermo Humilis

Dying churches are often clean and tidy. Growing churches, flourishing churches, are often characterised by “situations” and “issues” that require attention. Rosters need to be filled, visitations need to occur, kids are everywhere, there’s a spill on the kitchen floor, someone is playing the wrong chords during worship and there’s body odour in the foyer.

In other words, when real ministry is occurring, one of the things you can expect to see is a bit of a mess.

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: But much increase comes by the strength of the ox. (Proverbs 14:4)

In the book of Acts, we read of a church that enjoyed a rapid explosion of growth. The result of this growth in Jerusalem was a rain delay in their mercy ministries. The Hellenistic widows were overlooked in the distribution of food (Acts 6:1)

When the problem was voiced, the church addressed it forthrightly, carefully, and biblically, appointing seven godly men to oversee the distribution. What was the result of this godly response? Well, the result was more growth (Acts 6:7).

In other words, if you address the problems caused by growth biblically, the solution is likely to be more problems caused by growth down the track.

This is true of a growing family and often true about a growing church that wants to improve or expand its physical presence with new buildings or the purchase of new land.

Building a sanctuary can be seen in two ways. One way is to see it as carving out a niche, a place where we can go to stop growing, a place where we can nurse along our market share of local Christians, complete with an air-conditioned crèche.

Here, the sanctuary becomes a retreat venue and often a tomb for dead men’s bones.

The other way of seeing such plans is to view the resultant building as a staging area, preparing for the next great advance. One suggests a slow death, the latter is what we want to insist upon, namely, the beginning of birth pangs and a place for furthering the great commission.

In other words, our thoughts on building a building are not simply to ensure our comfort and put an end to the mess about the place but to ensure the mess continues.

No one did a finer job of this than the Lord Jesus.

In coming into the world He turned it upside down. Kings gathered in a panic and sinners ran in all directions. Jesus came as a carpenter to build a new and better temple. An eternal dwelling place for the saints of God. This required, among other things, a lot of noise and a great mess in bringing the old temple down.

It also meant blood spilt for sins, a body bruised for our iniquities and the birth pangs of a new creation.

The purpose of building, whether it’s a new venue, a new ministry or a new family, should not be connected to the idea of retirement or tidying things up but to the idea of gospel advance. Gospel loud. Gospel far. Gospel wide. Gospel growth.

Related...

We are on Schedule
Keeping up with the Cool Kids
Bed Blockers
The Offence of the Righteous

Filed Under: Who we Are Instead Tagged With: Building, Growth, Retreat

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sermo Humilis

For the love of all things true, beautiful and good.


Welcome to Sermo Humilis, a digital home for biblical discipleship and cultural Christianity. A few new thoughts every week.

Please remember to like, subscribe and share. It really helps me out.

Subscribe for Weekly Updates

As per our Privacy Policy, we will never hand your information to a third party.

please check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Categories

  • Life in Christendom
  • Just a Thought
  • Who we Are Instead

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Series

Sidebar - Jesus Through all of Life Series Sidebar Series - The Life and Times of Jesus Sidebar Series - Proverbs - Let the Lady Speak Sidebar - Marriage Preparation Series

The Most Popular Guff

Jesus, Binding the Strongman

The coming of Jesus into the world was more than a set-up for some

What we Call, a Victory

In scripture, the reality always exceeds the metaphor. Satan is

Dragons

Fairy tales are often closer to gospel truth than many of the things

2 Weeks before Marriage – Please Remain Calm

A veil is a covering that conceals and separates. It is designed to

He Fills the Hungry

We like to think of ourselves as independent creatures. We take it as

Jesus, Proof of Pardon

The people that Jesus had come to save had thought that He was too

Jesus Through all of Life – An Introduction

The Gospel, as the saying goes, is more than a steak on your plate

See and Hear

On the move? Weekly content can also be seen and heard via Youtube.

Topics

Beauty Children Comfort Covenant Creation Death Earth Eternity Evangelism Faith Fear Fellowship Food Forgiveness Gospel Grace Grief Guilt Heaven Holiness Jesus Joy Judgement Kingdom Law Life Love Marriage Mercy Money Prayer Redemption Rest Resurrection Sabbath Sacrifice Salvation Service Sheep Sin Slavery Truth Victory Weakness Wisdom

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe to Sermo Humilis

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Copyright © 2021 · Sermo Humilis

John Piper - A Hallway of Mirrors