Healthy, Growing Churches (6)

…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ…Ephesians 4.15

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me…” Acts 1.8

Epistle to the Ephesians 4.15
Ambrosiaster (fl. ca. 366-384)
“Considering the love of Christ by which he loved us and gave himself up for us, we should make everything subject to him, knowing that he is the author of life for all. This is the truth. We are to be subject to him as members of the body are to the head. Others, either through error or through malice, may not confess that Christ is the head of everything or that everything is created from him by the Father’s will. But we who adhere to the wholeness of faith ought nonetheless to take pains with all care and devotion that we bring no harm to this faith but rather to uphold it. We do this by remaining steadfast in this affirmation, so as to constrain the talk of depraved minds armed against the truth.”

The present “come see” model of doing church is not working. The Lord means His churches to be signs and outposts of the Kingdom. He is building them as bases from which His witnesses and ambassadors “go tell” the Good News to the lost world. Trying to make our churches look, sound, and talk like the materialistic, pop culture around us is only moving us to the margins of society and culture, and presenting a truncated, if not false, witness to the watching world. We are not speaking the truth if we are only mirroring our culture’s fickle, fleeting ways; and we are certainly not speaking truth in love if we demand of our neighbors that they come to us to hear the Good News we should be going daily to tell them. Healthy, growing churches are bringers of joy to one another and their communities. Filled with the Spirit of power, they take every opportunity as they are going to show and tell Jesus to their neighbors, at every opportunity, in every season, and by every means, so that some may be saved.

How would you describe the state of your church’s witness to your community?

T. M. Moore

Healthy, Growing Churches
Our assessment tool, Twelve Questions that Could Change Your Church, can help you discover the extent to which you are building the Lord’s church as He intends. Use this tool with your church leaders to discern the health of your church, then to plan the next phase of your growth as the Body of Christ. You can download Twelve Questions for free by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Quotations from Church Fathers are from the Ancient Christian Commentary Series, published by InterVarsity Press.