Your Journey Blog

Ten Principles for Launching a Major Growth Thrust

As we read through the book of Acts we need to always remember it is a book of history.  It gives us a glimpse of how God worked through ordinary men and women to fulfill His purposes and carry out His ongoing mission of redemption.  We should look at the book of Acts as a place to glean principles and insights for church planting and church life.  It is not a book to look for blueprints or models but rather a book to discover transferable principles which will be shaped by your cultural context. 

Here are a few transferable principles that we can glean from the launching of the church in Acts 1-2:

1. Our motives must be great commission driven.  Acts 1:4-8

If our only motive is to get butts in the seats at whatever cost we are heading for a world of hurt and disappointment.  If all we are doing is to try to increase our revenue stream and meet our church's financial needs, we are just going to be frustrated.  If all our efforts are trying to get the "already convinced" into our church, the wheels will fall over very quickly.  We must be great commission focused. Our hearts must be broken and burdened for those who are far from God. The only way some churches are going to grow in the consumeristic Christian culture that is being developed is through effective evangelism.  My experience is that unchurched people don't need all the bells and whistles of the mega church...Christians do!  Those far from God want relationships and meaningful connections.

2. Spiritual dependence is vital.  Acts 1:12-14

The disciples gathered constantly for prayer.  They reflected on their deep dependence on God, clinging to God not knowing what was next, simply waiting in humble dependence was the posture of the disciples. How will your congregation reflect their prayerful dependence on God?  I remember hand labeling 12,000 mailers with our team and praying for each person that God would open their hearts and touch them.  Prayer walking your community before and during your growth thrust has a powerful effect. Having your people generate a list of people they would like to see come to Christ during this outreach and then having a special prayer meeting where each name is lifted up before the throne of God is very effective.  Here is a post on how to pray for the unchurched in your sphere of influence.

3. Select and build into leaders in preparation for outreach.  Acts 1:15-26

Preparing for a growth thrust is a great way to expand and develop your leadership team and volunteer based.  Giving people short term specific assignments is a great way to training and identify leaders.  In some cases you can double your leadership team and volunteer base with inviting people to fill needs for the short term commitment.  The key aspect is to that the more people you have involved in the planning and preparation the more committed they will be in inviting and reaching out their friends and family. We need to see these growth thrust a leadership development opportunities.

4. Pick a good day and time of year for launching the growth thrust.  Act 2:1

In Acts 2 we see that God launched the Church on the day of Pentecost. This was no accident! There are theological, historical and sociological implications to this date. Pentecost, which means “50” was the final celebration of the Feast of First Fruits which happened 50 days earlier. At this Feast, God’s people were to give a free-will offering (Deuteronomy 16:9-10) celebrating God’s provision. Theological and historical significance was that the Feast of First Fruits started on the Resurrection Sunday and ended on the Day of Pentecost. So we see that the church was born out of the first fruits of Christ’s sacrifice. The sociological significance was that Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks was one of three annual pilgrim feasts (Deuteronomy 16:16) where God’s people from all over the world came to celebrate. This is why we see such an array of people and languages in Acts 2:5-11. Pentecost was no accident. It was strategic and that is one reason why three thousand were added to the Church that day.

So when is the best time to do growth thrust?  Our experience in the midwest has been:

1. Fall: Late September-early October
2. Lenten Season: February-March
3. Easter: Late March-early April

The best time for launching a growth thrust is the fall because you have nine months before you face the summer slump. The second best time for launching a church is February, this is a season when unchurched people come back to church. The third is on Easter Sunday.

5. Launch out in the Spirit's power.  Acts 2:1-4

Remember only God can draw people into a relationship with him. It can be tempting to trust your planning but you must teach your people to act in faith and depend fully on the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the life giving power. Prayer and fasting will be critical for you and your church to express its dependence on God. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”  Psalm 20:7

Join me next week as we continue by looking at five more Principles for Launching a Major Growth Thrust from Acts 2.

 

What is Pride? - John Piper

In preparation for a message I am doing from I Peter 5:1-11 this week I came across a message by John Piper on part of the text, vs 5-7, which reads:

"You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because he cares for you."

As I listened to the message I found myself using the list to examine my heart and do an inventory for those nasty areas of pride that can rear its ugly head in my soul and rob me of the spiritual power that God wants to impart to me.

Remember, "God oppose the proud"...I do not want a holy, omnipotent and omniscient God standing against all I do and all I seek to do in this world.

He also "...gives grace to the humble."  As I prayerfully worked through this list I found myself being humbled by the Word of God.  Though it is painful, it is necessary, as Fenelon writes, "We find weaknesses necessary to deprive us of all confidence in our own strength.  This discovery, however far from discouraging us, serves to destroy our self-reliance and to raze to the ground the edifice of pride."

May God use this list to keep you on the side of God (humility) and not being opposed by God (pride).

John Piper's Ten Biblical Observations About Pride.

1. Pride Is Self-Satisfaction

God says to Israel in Hosea 13:4–6,

I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt . . . 5 I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. 6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore, they forgot Me. (Cf. Jeremiah 49:4.)

2. Pride Is Self-Sufficiency and Self-Reliance

Moses warns the people of God in Deuteronomy 8:11–17 about what will happen when they have rest in the promised land:

Beware . . . 12 lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply . . . 14 then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt . . . [and you] 17 say in your heart, "My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth."

God's goodness is turned into self-sufficiency.

3. Pride Considers Itself Above Instruction

In Jeremiah 13:9–10 God says to the people of Judah,

I will destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts.

Pride stubbornly refuses to be taught the way of God, and makes its own wishes the measure of truth.

4. Pride Is Insubordinate

Psalm 119:21 says,

Thou dost rebuke the arrogant, the cursed who wander from Thy commandments.

When the commandments of God are spoken, pride turns away and will not submit. It rejects the right and authority of God to command.

5. Pride Takes Credit for What God Alone Does

One of the most vivid illustrations of this is the case of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

[Nebuchadnezzar said], "Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" 31 While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, "King Nebuchadnezzar . . . sovereignty has been removed from you . . . 32 until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes." (Daniel 4:30–32)

Then, after his season of humiliation grazing in the fields like an ox, Nebuchadnezzar is restored and confesses,

Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride. (Daniel 4:37; cf. Isaiah 10:12)

6. Pride Exults in Being Made Much Of

Jesus indicted the religious leaders in Jerusalem:

And they love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called by men, Rabbi. (Matthew 23:6)

7. Pride Aspires to the Place of God

In our family devotions we just read the story of Herod's pride in Acts 12:

And on an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. 22 And the people kept crying out, "The voice of a god and not of a man!" 23 And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:21–23; cf. Isaiah 14:12–14)

8. Pride Opposes the Very Existence of God

Psalm 10:4:

The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek [God]. All his thoughts are, "There is no God."

Pride knows that the simplest solution for its own survival would be that there be no God at all. That would be, as the Nazi's might say, "The Final Solution" for the survival of pride.

It doesn't come as any surprise then that...

9. Pride Refuses to Trust in God

Proverbs 28:25 contrasts arrogance and trust:

An arrogant man stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will prosper.

Pride cannot trust God. The posture of trust is too weak. Too dependent. It calls too much attention to the strength and wisdom of another. Trusting God is the heartbeat of humility, the opposite of pride.

When pride keeps us from trusting in God to take care of us, there are two possibilities: one is that we feel a false security based on our own imagined power and shrewdness to avert catastrophe. The other is that we realize that we cannot guarantee our security, and so we feel anxious.

Which brings us to the tenth trait of pride and the final explanation about the connection between 1 Peter 5:6 and 7.

10. Pride Is Anxious About the Future

In Isaiah 51:12–13 God says to anxious Israel that their problem is pride.

I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who is made like grass; 13 that you have forgotten the Lord your Maker?

Who do you think you are to be afraid? Sounds strange, doesn't it? But that's how subtle pride is. Pride is the root of our anxiety

HT

Nine Ways to Create Momentum for Fall Outreach

Legendary football coach Paul 'Bear' Bryant said, "Have a plan. Follow the plan, and you'll be surprised how successful you can be. Most people don't have a plan. That's why it's is easy to beat most folks."  In a recent survey it was revealed that 79% of churches have no, to little, plans for fall outreach.  This may be the reason why 80-85% of the churches in America are either plateaued or declining. Designing, executing and implementing outreach plans and strategies is one of the skills pastors need to creating positive momentum in their churches.

Here are a couple insights that you can apply in planning your fall growth thrust.

1.  Develop a team.

Too many pastors try to carry the load all by themselves, which is an unbiblical notion.  Christianity is a team sport. Team building is one of the skills successful pastors need in their tool belts. Learning to pick the right players on your team is crucial. Guiding and leading the team is imperative.  Trusting the team to execute the plan is empowering.  Celebrating and encouraging the team is vital.  I encourage pastors to use short-term task forces with a specific task along with a starting and ending point.  If you built a task force for each of your major outreach initiatives for fall, winter and spring your team building skills would improve each time.  Team building is a skill which is honed through the "learning by doing" process. 

Getting key influencers involved in the process is vital to building positive momentum. 

2.  Develop a time line.

To develop a good time line start with the last date of the project and work backwards.  If you are doing a fall growth push here are a couple ideas.  End your fall outreach campaign on the first weekend in November with a family friendly comeback event and start July first with the selection of the team.  This is what I call the "three month rule" which is to begin the detailed planning process at least three months before launch of the outreach campaign.  Here is an overview of what the would happen in those three months:

November

• Celebrate and evaluate progress
• Family friendly comeback event
• Membership class offered

October

• Newcomers luncheon set
• Bible 101 or seeker study offered
• Small groups launched around theme
• Sunday worship theme launched
• Second Touch teams equipped and empowered

September

• Teaching series on outreach and prayer launched
• Prayer walking implemented
• Affinity groups launched - youth, singles, men's & women's ministries
• Executing marketing plan
• Equipping congregation with promotional tools

August

• A clear call to prayer made to the entire congregation
• Prayer emphasis kick off
• Marketing and promotional plan set
• Marketing and promotional tools sent to printer
• Small group leaders trained and prepared

July

• Team selected
• Theme developed
• Promotional strategy selected
• Graphic images & promotional tools designed

3.  Brainstorm ideas for a delivering strong biblical content that address the heart language issues of your mission field.

Many pastors struggle with the creative aspects of leadership. I recommend that pastors research and purchase many of the good outreach or spiritual growth campaigns available.  Many of these come with time lines, job descriptions, graphics, sermon ideas and small group materials.  The key is planning ahead.  After the church has done a few of this campaigns, then they can take a shot at developing their own. 

4.  Raise the spiritual temperature of the church.

It is a must to incorporate a church wide prayer project for before and during the campaign. One example: Call the church to "pray for five neighbors, for five minutes a day, for five weeks" before the outreach campaign.  Another idea would be to mobilize the church to prayer walk your whole community before the campaign. You could also call the church to a season of prayer and fasting.

5.  Brainstorm ideas for creating buzz throughout the church and throughout the community.

Work with your team in thinking of ways to get the word out. I like to use sowing language when it comes to getting the word throughout a community.  Here is a post on the Sowing and Reaping Principle.

6.  Drive the theme throughout the church.

Creating a sense of synergy throughout the church is important. Getting every section of the church moving in the same direction is a momentum building experience that creates positive energy and good morale.  So take your theme and drive it throughout the church from seniors to youth, from singles to toddlers!

7.  Develop comeback events.

Creating opportunities for new guests to connect relationally, as well as spiritually, is crucial to having a successful outreach campaign. Planning some type of family friendly event is a great way to get people involved in serving for the first time and connecting relationally with others in the church. Offering entry level bible studies like Bible 101 or Christianity 101 with in weeks of your outreach campaign is important in providing those next steps for those that are spiritually interested.  Finally, you want to offer people an opportunity to connect with the church and its leadership by offering some type of newcomers luncheon or party at the pastors event where they hear the story and vision of the church as well as connect relationally with key leaders.

8.  Recruit volunteers to fill needed ministry roles.

Doing campaigns is a great opportunity to recruit new volunteers for set up, event planning, children's ministry, ushers, greeters, follow up, administration, new hosts for small groups, etc. 

9.  Drive your missional values deeper into the culture of your church.

Remember, anytime you do a campaign it is an opportunity to drive your missional vision and values deeper into the lives of your people.  The values of evangelism, community, spiritual dependence and community transformation come alive during the campaign and provide opportunities for personal growth and corporate maturity.