Title Ephesians 04:15-16 Growing Church
Content Growing Church
■ Ephesians 4:15-16.
A new year has begun. Dear brothers and sisters, I wish you all good health in the new year and that your will be fulfilled under the guidance of the Lord. This year is the Year of the Snake, the New Year. In 辛巳年, God's blessings to individuals and families! And, full of the church, just as the name suggests! Let's pray together for a gentle, 紳士年.
From the first week of the year, it seems that the whole world is covered with white snow and the world is clean. Let us worship God in spirit and in truth, with a pure heart, reverently and with one heart.
In particular, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation, and the motto of our church is "a church growing through the word" as you can see on the left. Church growth must depend on God's word of salvation above all else. The church must be above the Word. I hope that you will have a first week of seeing Christ, the head of the church, armed with the Word, and taking the first step powerfully.
When it comes to church growth, both quantitative and qualitative growth must be achieved. First, through qualitative growth, harmonization of development must be achieved. "Quality growth" means inner growth. "Inner growth" refers to the depth of the believer's faith. When the members are able to pray more earnestly, put more effort into the fellowship of love among the members, and obey God's will by deeply pondering the Word, the church will grow internally.
When the members who are not personally active at all and come and go to church experience a new experience of faith and become true disciples of Jesus Christ, inner growth will take place, and this inner growth will soon become the basis for church growth. will be
Such inner growth of the church can be achieved by the work of the Holy Spirit. This is because the Holy Spirit is the driving force that makes the fellowship of the saints and the church grow. church
I believe that God has given more than one gift to each and every believer who confesses and accepts Jesus Christ as the Savior in order to build the virtue of righteousness.
Even if knowledge is lacking, there are many people who have wisdom, and there are people who are good at evangelism but do good service. There are people who are good at praying even if they are not good at singing, and there are people who are good at singing even if they pray wrong.
We each have organs that no one else has! beauty ! You will think you have a special talent. All you have to do is make good use of it and do it for the church. The church can grow when the saints use the gifts they receive as gifts from God in gratitude and use them well.
In order for the church to grow, the gift of the Holy Spirit that each of us has received must be manifested in the church. Also, the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be well manifested in a life that bears the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is a life of “love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
The growth of the church is possible only when we truly love God and our neighbor. Because Christian love is the foundation for church growth. The church, the body of Christ, can grow only when it is in perfect harmony with the life of faith and daily life. We, believers in Jesus Christ, must constantly, strive, to reach the life of Jesus.
To do that, we must set aside time, read the Word of God diligently, ponder deeply, and listen diligently to the sermon. And as you say! You can grow only when you practice what you preach. The words of the Bible give bright and clear light to the saints and guide them on the right path. This year, we should all read the Old and New Testaments at least once.
Please try to read it.
In the new year, we should all make full use of the gifts each of us has received. Let's seek out what each of us can do according to our gifts and serve. Please do not throw away the gifts you have been given as if you were tossing them away freely. Let's think about what we can do for the growth of our Songcheon church and do our best. A church can grow when all the members use their spiritual gifts to build the church.
Quantitative growth is also required. Jesus said to be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Therefore, evangelism is the great command of Jesus. Evangelism is like the duty of the debtor. We must inform our neighbors of the salvation news of Jesus Christ and lead them to the church. Just as if you do not have children, you will lose money, if you do not evangelize, the church cannot grow and the church cannot continue. The church, the body of Christ, can be maintained only when God's chosen people are gathered and made disciples of Christ.
We are given a divine mission to reach the ends of the earth and preach the good news to all peoples. In order to fulfill this mission, the church must have internal maturity and external growth. If we do not preach the gospel so that people can continue to gather in the church, the body of Jesus Christ, the church will not be able to grow. What we should be interested in and study is the method of evangelism.
The question is whether our evangelism method is helping the church grow. Forcing people to give their lives to Jesus Christ would not be effective evangelism. So, even when many people hear the word "evangelism", they often cause rejection. A few years ago, in Dongseong-ro, Daegu, wearing a shoulder strap that read "Jesus Heaven" and "Hell of Unbelief", I was preaching on the street. , I saw a scene of prayer.
Passers-by, trying to avoid being caught by them, could be seen escaping and a young woman escaping into the drugstore next door.
It is good to evangelize diligently, but I doubted whether the gospel would be preached in that way. It will be difficult to expect the growth of the church through an artificial evangelism method that pushes too hard. The evangelism method of a growing church is to preach the gospel in a way that answers the questions of unbelievers and meets their needs.
Also, in our lives, we should let the fragrance of Jesus flow. If that person believes in Jesus, I want to believe too! Only when you set an example so that the gospel can be preached and the church can grow at the same time. In 2001, let's resolve to fulfill our responsibilities for the growth of the institutions to which each of us belongs. Being appointed to each institution is like receiving a command before God. Failure to fulfill this responsibility will result in disobedience of orders.
No matter what happens during this year, please do your best as a worker used by God. The church can grow only when each institution within the church grows. I hope that these members will be able to organize organizations that are not in our church this year.
Our body parts need to be active in fulfilling their roles.
Just as the body can be healthy, the church can grow when individual members can have close fellowship with each other through each institution, and have strong spiritual fellowship by helping each other in the field of life.
There should be a lot of laughter in the church. If there is laughter, the growth of the church is possible, and if there is not much laughter, the growth of the church will inevitably be weakened.
In church growth, the qualitative is the root, and the quantitative is the fruit. In Matthew 17:17, it is said that a good tree produces good fruit.” It means that when there is qualitative growth, quantitative growth is also possible. In 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered. Oh, but God made it grow.”
I think there are things we can do and things we cannot do in church growth. Church growth will be possible only when we faithfully do what we can and entrust God with what He will do. When the members do their best for the growth of the church and live a life of faith with constant zeal, God will bless them and they will be a blessing to individuals and the church will grow.
Last year, the house was built with the prayers and devotion of all the members. The session discussed that we should pray and gather our devotion so that a new church can stand tall here in the next 10 years, and we will seek the cooperation of the members. Let all the members unite their hearts and minds this year and dedicate themselves to the growth of the church. Let's look to Almighty God and start the year with God and walk together