Loved this section from "Growing Up"....
“Another reason for
the lack of disciple-making is the influence of the secular world upon
believers. As Christians, we can easily fall into the trap of gauging success
in the church by our buildings, the number of bodies present, and the size of
our budgets. However, this mentality presents a serious problem: Jesus never
gauged effectiveness by these criteria. During His earthly ministry, He never
owned anything. In fact, our Lord never had a place to lay His head, much less
a regular meeting place for His “congregation” (Luke 9:58).”
“Additionally, Jesus never attempted to draw large crowds
for the sake of counting heads. Although He spoke to the masses, He
consistently departed to be with the twelve. Acts 1 records that, after He
ascended into heaven, only 120 disciples gathered together to pray for God to
empower them through the sending of His Spirit. This fact defies all modern
church growth standards. Jesus spoke with unprecedented authority. He raised
the dead. He gave sight to the blind. He healed the sick.
And at the end of His ministry, the church had grown to only
120 people. This is not to discount the miraculous work of our Lord, but to
simply point out that Jesus was not interested in growing a mile wide and an
inch deep. Rather, He focused on developing mature, faithful disciples who
would go out and make more disciples.”
“Jesus, as demonstrated above, measured success by something
other than buildings, bodies, and bucks. He taught us that disciple-making is
what matters, and it is a process that takes time...”
Excerpt From: Robby Gallaty. “Growing Up.”
Looking forward to the rest!
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