The Atmosphere and Attitude of a Growing Church

Have you ever read Acts 15? Many people find themselves skipping the chapter, or at best, lazily dozing their way through it to get to the excitement of chapter 16 where Paul received his great “Macedonian Call.” But I believe that there are thousands of churches in America that need to hear and heed the message of Acts 15.

Every church is a family and every family has a certain personality. You know families that are quiet and peaceful and others who are reactive and loud. There are families that are happy-go-lucky and families that always seem to be on edge and involved in unnecessary drama. The same is true with churches. Every church has a certain atmosphere that is determined by its overall attitude toward ministry and growth.

Let me give you the short version… Paul and Barnabas were doing awesome things for God, winning the lost to Christ, and establishing local churches across the region. Then the Judaizers showed up - a group of people who were telling all of these new converts that they had to be circumcised into Judaism before they could be saved. Note the change in atmospheres in the following passage…

“And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. And when (Paul and Barnabas) were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them…” (verses 3-4)

Notice, growth is happening. People are being saved, churches are being started. After thousands of years of obstinate resistance, finally the Gentiles are submitting to Jehovah and receiving Jesus as Savior. The Jewish Christians must have been thrilled! They must have been overwhelmed with a sense of triumph as they watched God’s Spirit doing such great miracles in their midst. But then we read…

“But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” (verse 5)

Imagine pulling hot, fresh-baked brownies from the oven, covering them with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, drizzling warm chocolate syrup over the top and adding a touch of whipped cream and then… seasoning it with several tablespoons of garlic salt. Is your mouth watering now?

One of the great frustrations of ministry is when into the mix of Spirit-filled joy over what God is doing, someone misuses their spiritual saltiness like the Pharisees did in this passage. They were the rule-keepers, there to make sure that all of this growth was done according to the book (their own book, by the way - a system of humanly-originated rules designed for the purpose of bottlenecking ministry with extra paperwork).

One of the biggest problems with this dousing of spiritual flames is that it cannot be ignored. Verse six records that “the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.” Then all of chapter fifteen concerns itself with one of the earliest church councils. Imagine, the Spirit-filled leaders of the early church, ready to take on the world, taking a break from their zealous pursuit of the lost to consider a matter brought up by… joysuckers.

Verse three records that all the brethren had great joy over what God was doing. Three verses later, those same brethren had to stop to deal with the complaint. Like poking a helium balloon with a hot needle, the pharisaical believers (they were saved according to Scripture) had managed to deflate the zeal of the fledgling church at a crucial time.

Why do people do this? Why, when things seem to start going well, does someone have to call what is happening into question? I believe there are two key words that must be noticed to understand the phenomenon. One is the word “Pharisees.” Remember their past? They were always rule-keepers before, nitpickers with an agenda for keeping everyone in line. They had been saved, but their old natures kept hanging around. Then the word “Gentiles.” Those Barbarians outside the Judaic covenant people who never seemed to want to live by the rules.

The same thing happens in Baptist churches (and others I’m sure) across the land. God begins to move and all of a sudden all of those new people start to come in. There is a breath of fresh air, a new kind of leadership, a fresh sense of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. The only problem is, when new people come in things… change! Ah, there it is. That pesky word nobody is fully comfortable with. Change.

When we speak of “change” in church we begin to envision a Christian heavy metal band, doctrinal corruption, speaking in tongues, and a plethora of other fears. We react with radical and irrational fear to change. Why? Because change is something that cannot be regulated or controlled. And nobody likes to lose control.

My wife and I have watched with glee as our tiny little baby has grown into a four-year-old. We wanted her to talk, now we’d like a little peace and quiet now and then. She’s growing. Do you know what the definition of growth is? It’s change. If our eight-pound infant had never changed, she would never have grown. You know what else comes with this change and growth? A loss of control on our part. Someday, she will be full-grown and we’ll have to let go. She’ll enter the world on her own and we’ll have little or no control over what she does with her life. We might have influence, but not control.

How do you react when change comes, when growth occurs, when God seems to be doing something to which you are not accustomed? Do you rejoice like the brethren in Jerusalem? Or do you get out the rule-book to make sure things have been done correctly? Families don’t sit down and examine Robert’s Rules of Order every time they make a decision. They make it together in faith. They are a dynamic unit. And so is a church.

Let’s get on board with what God is doing. We’ll be discerning of what is biblical and what is not, but we’ll not put a fresh movement of God under a microscope to be so intensely evaluated that we cannot enjoy the process. May God give us hearts of joy to watch Him at work!