Today, only 20 percent of churches in the U.S. are growing, and only 5 percent of those churches are growing by reaching lost people. That means 95 percent of the church growth we celebrate merely shuffles existing Christians around.
And, most studies show that somewhere near 90 percent of active, church-going evangelicals have never even shared their faith with someone outside of their family.
Jesus made incredible promises about the success of the church:
- “Greater works than I have done, you will do.”
- “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
- “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
I know that God sometimes calls us to labor with apparent fruitlessness. Even modern day giants of the faith like Adoniram Judson experienced that.
But if we are not experiencing fruit, it is worth at least asking where we have departed from Jesus’ patterns of ministry or failed to believe his promises and cut ourselves off from his power.
I want to paint for you a vision of a “centered and sent” church—a church that had no money and no building and no organization and no influence but was unstoppable. A church that turned the world upside down.
It is found in Acts 6 in the story of Stephen, an ordinary guy in the early church with no seminary degree and no position of authority. Yet he is the main character in one of the most strategic expansions of the church in the book of Acts and whose story is given to us, I believe, as a pattern for how to see ministry.
Stephen was not one of the original 12 disciples. He was an ordinary layman, with nothing special about him other than that he was filled by the Holy Spirit. We first meet him in chapter 6 because of a conflict that arose in the early church. Verse 1 says that the Hellenists were complaining because their widows were being neglected by the Hebrew Jews in the daily distribution. Stephen and a handful of others were chosen to rectify this. The apostles prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
Even a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. They had to be one of the most resistant groups to the gospel and some of Jesus’ biggest opponents. But they came to faith not through compelling arguments for the resurrection but through seeing the love in the church and the demonstration of the gospel in the community.
So many people came to Christ, including the priests, that Stephen and the other leaders were called before the council. At this point in chapter 7, Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives what has to be one of the most in-depth analyses of Israel’s history ever recorded, which ends with his rejection and stoning.
Then, “There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles …. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:1, 4 ESV).
Stephen’s service of love in the community created the stir. He preached the sermon that brought the persecution. And, as a result, this is the first time the gospel had left Jerusalem. And not a single apostle was involved!
That’s the first of seven elements of a “centered and sent” church:
1. Ordinary people are the tip of the gospel spear.
If we are going to reach the “priests” in our community, it’s not going to happen because of the sermons we preach in the church but by how “Stephens” live out the gospel in our communities.
The priests were not simply unfamiliar with the gospel. They were hostile to it. Their hearts were changed not by argumentation but by seeing the gospel lived out by ordinary people in the community. We have to equip people to live out and explain the gospel in the streets.
2. Love on display in the church is its most effective apologetic.
What propelled the gospel forward—and what convinced the priests—was the love and unity at work in the church.
That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Jesus had said, “By this will all men know you are my disciples …” By how loudly you praise? No. By how you love each other.
That love shows itself by how our love spills out in the community and when the church possesses a unity in Christ greater than all smaller things that might divide it.
The conflict between the Hebrew Jews and Hellenistic Jews was racial and cultural and a long-standing one.
But in the church they showed that they had something greater in Jesus than anything else that could divide them. Jesus had said in John 17:23, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
Love on display in the church—through how we pour ourselves out for others and how we stand unified in Jesus—is the church’s most powerful apologetic.
3. Our people need to know how to move with the Holy Spirit.
This passage says a couple of times that Stephen was filled with the Spirit. This is part of a bigger theme in Acts: The Holy Spirit is the main actor in the church.
Jesus had told the apostles not to do anything until the Holy Spirit came upon them, because until he came, nothing that they did—even with all that they knew—would amount to anything.
We need to teach people in our churches how to hear from the Holy Spirit, to discover their giftings by and move in him. Because if they don’t, we’ll never experience the explosive growth they did in Acts.
4. Raising up leaders ought to be the primary focus of our ministries.
The apostles saw leadership development as their primary task. They catalyzed ministry in the church; they didn’t do the work of ministry for the church. They followed the example of Jesus, who “gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:11-12).
Do you have a process for raising up leaders in the church? A way to restore the focus of ministry back to the people? At the Summit we use the phrase, “You can do it; we can help,” not “We’ll do it for you.” We know the best ministry ideas are in the congregation and constantly ask how we can tap into those ideas.
5. There is no dichotomy between width and depth.
In the early church, they were focused on both width and depth. Just consider their width: There were 3,000 people saved in a day, miracles being performed, and specially targeted, contextually sensitive sermons being preached.
But we also see in Stephen’s dying moments of martyrdom a faith that had been equipped to stand the test of persecution.
Jesus also demonstrated both width and depth in his ministry. The Gospel of John tells us that he began his ministry with the statement, “Come and see.” That’s attractional! But then later he said, “Come and die.” That’s discipleship! He ended his ministry with “Go and tell.” That missional! That’s the full scope of the church’s ministry—and we should be focusing on all three.
6. Only depth in the gospel can produce the sacrifices and boldness needed to propel the gospel forward in a hostile culture.
In his dying moment, Stephen is thinking about the gospel: how Jesus died for him and forgave him and now he’s doing that for others.
When we talk about making the sacrifices necessary to reach people, the only way for the church to develop the capacity to sacrifice is being overwhelmed by what Jesus sacrificed for it.
If we don’t take our churches deep in the gospel, they’ll never grow wide.
7. We’re leaving a lot of power on the table.
One of the oddest things about the story in Acts 7 is that the entire church, at this point, is still together in Jerusalem, even after receiving their marching orders in Acts 1:8. God had promised an extraordinary amount of power to those who were committed to taking the gospel outside of the church.
You see, even in the early church, their propensity was to stay huddled together in Jerusalem, building a big movement there.
I wonder if perhaps they misheard Acts 1:8, the same way we confuse it today.
We hear it as, “Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and then the uttermost parts of the world.” But it’s not “then.” It’s “and.” We are to pursue these simultaneously.
Most of us think of discipleship sequentially: Learn. Then pray. Then give. Then go. We’ve stopped saying that around the Summit and say instead, “Just go.” If you do, you’ll find motivation to learn, pray, and give. No better discipleship program exists in our church than going on a mission trip or with a church plant.
Has your church, like the one in Acts 7, been blessed, but you’ve yet to go? God has given us this pattern for ministry, and it’s for every church, no matter the generation or size.
His power is there for those who will simply step up and take it!
This is a modified version of the talk I gave last week at the Centered & Sent conference we hosted at The Summit Church. To purchase the rest of the lectures & panel discussions from our phenomenal guest speakers, check back at CenteredandSent.com in the days to come.