Enlarging The Tent Site

This past week I participated in a forum to discuss the barriers to church growth. While this particular meeting was different, I can’t tell you the number of seminars, conferences and classes on the topic of church growth that leave out the most important part – God. I’m not trying to over spiritualize anything, nor am I trying to make excuses for why we haven’t grown as a church - that’s not even applicable. Our church has grown by 800% over the past 5 years! But we haven’t grown because we’ve followed someone else’s template or the latest formula in the bookstore. We’ve grown because God has continued to pour His blessings out upon our family of faith! Someone once asked me give them the secret to our growth. I had to be honest and tell them, “I don’t have a clue.” We have been driven by a mission statement that simply says that we exist to “Exalt Christ and Share His Love”. And we under gird the ministries of the church with continual, fervent prayer. Jesus said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me.” On every occasion, we endeavor to put the spotlight on Christ. He is the impetus for everything we do. Every ministry, every work, every event, we always point the spotlight to the cross and present Christ as the only hope for our world. Our firm belief is that those of us that have experienced His hope have the privilege and responsibility of sharing it with others. We don’t try to draft new members to a particular denomination or doctrine of man. We simply make friends and share our testimonies with them. And within the context of that friendship, we pray that Christ will reveal His love thru our lives and our new friends will become born again believers. We pray that God will give us favor in the eyes of our neighbors and with everyone we meet so that there will be no barriers to our witness as individuals and as a church. We ask God to increase our family of faith. We ask Him to let us see the lost around us and have compassion enough to reach out to them at their point of need.
There’s nothing new about any of these things… We’re just acting like a family of faith. Do we get it right all the time? Absolutely not! We’re no where close to perfect. So I guess you could say we’re the perfect place for imperfect people. And as such, Jesus is meeting people in our midst and folks are being saved. What is our response? We’re following the instruction God gave in Isaiah 54:2-3. We’re “enlarging the site of our tent, and letting our tent curtains be stretched out; we’re not holding back; we’re lengthening our ropes and driving our pegs deep. And God is spreading us out to the right and to the left.” And it’s happening simply because we are asking God to bless us with opportunities to practice the great commission and the great commandment. It’s amazing what our Lord will do when we take time to ask. You may remember a few years ago when the book, The Prayer of Jabez came out. Some people thought it was a bunch of junk; others thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I read the book and was challenged to begin praying like Jabez. I don’t believe Jabez’s prayer has any kind of magical power, but I was reminded of the close relationship we have with the Lord and how much He desires to bless us. And it’s with that same attitude that I pray for our church to grow. And I believe there is power when we pray in that manner - expectantly, humbly, and in faith, trusting our merciful and gracious God to answer us according to His plan and purpose for our life. There are alot of good plans for church growth out there and I'm not knocking any of them. But without the critical elements listed above - prayer, emphasizing the great commission, practicing the great commandment and receiving the grace of God - I'm not sure what good it will do to enlarge the site of the church tent.

Posted in: Church Growth, Church planning, great commandment, great commission, vision