Growing the Church - Kevin Brechbill | CGS 2022

Lesson Transcript

Looks like I have the disadvantage of, uh, having the second message here and you guys, uh, trying to stay awake before we, uh, go to eat, so, uh, that's fine. Greetings in Christ's name. Um, it is a honor to be here and a pleasure to be here. Uh, I know some of you folks. A lot of you I don't know, but, uh, it's good to be here. So the title I was given to share on is Church Growth. Now, I don't know what comes to your mind when you think of church growth, um, but I think of a very large, massive subject.

Like, where do you start? But I it's a it's a it's a very much an interest of mine. I, I spent most of my life trying to understand how to grow churches, like, what is the best way to do that. So I have very much of an interest in it, and, uh, I try to find people that know more than more than myself about it. So, um, it-it's very much of an interest, and it's a it's a it's a beautiful subject.

But I would like to start with my real title of my message is Church Growth May Be Different Than How You Have Prepared Yourself. And just think about that. When you think of church growth, it may be different than how you've been prepared. I wanna start kind of a high end and funnel down. Um, I think there's three church growth avenues that happen, and I don't uh, the first one is biological growth. I don't think this is a complicated one.

I think we understand what biological growth is, and, um, it's not it's not complicated at all to understand. The second one I would like to look at is transfer growth. Now, what I find interesting about transfer growth is this is the one that we pretend not to be proud of. I always find it interesting.

Um, we, we w it's interesting how many people talk about not wanting transfer growth, and I don't know what what the dynamic around that is, but I don't really know of any church that doesn't have some sort of transfer growth. So I think it's more important how are we looking at transfer transfer growth? Is it a is there a healthy way or a better way to look at it than just be negative towards it? Um, so think about that. I actually think it's extremely important to understand transfer growth.

Transfer growth there's lots of different backgrounds that people come from, lots of different churches, lots of different backgrounds. Some may know Christ, some may not, but transfer growth is not all bad, so just put that out there. The third one is conversion growth. Now, this one here is where probably a lot of people here are because of this. They wanna see conversion growth. This is the one that you hear the most about. People get the most excited about. Um, you go to almost any Christian church.

I think there's probably very few that don't talk about and want conversion growth. It's probably the one we do the least the most poorly at. Um, we're, we're, we're there's a lot of energy going into it, so I think we're making some headway just, just I think it's a good thing. But, you know, everybody wants to be a part of a church that has conversion growth. Not very many people wanna be a part of a church that has transfer growth. I find that curious. Pros and cons. Think about it.

So back circling back to my, my thought is church growth may be different than how you have prepared yourself. Now, my next question is this: Are you prepared for how growth looks and feels like coming from biological, transfer, and conversion growth? Do you really know what that looks and feels like? Are you prepared for that? If you if you're a part of a new plan or you wanna start a church, are you prepared for that?

I would like to start and try to give you a perspective of w of do a background check on our church, um, speaking from our experience. Sorry about that. Background checks in churches are very interesting, um, and I think there's a lot to be learned. But just to give you perspective of the people that the backgrounds from people in, in, in our current church, we have the unchurched. We have ex-criminals. We have lawyers. I should have probably said ex-lawyers. We have Mennonites, conservative to liberal.

We have River Brother. Now, this is the best and most safest background to come from. If you don't know me, I'm from River Brother background. We have Jehovah Witness. We have Catholic. We have Protestant Evangelical. We have Amish. We have Church of Christ. Now, what picture comes to your mind when you put all that in one place? Diversity. I'm sorry? Diversity. Diversity. Picture of beauty or picture of confusion? Picture of strength or picture of weakness? Picture of unity or picture of disunity?

Our response and the way we understand this will determine which side of the fence you fall in or become. I had an extra slide here. So, so, um, somehow I got an extra slide to say it. So I'll just run over this again. Picture of beauty or picture of, uh, confusion? Picture of strength or picture of weakness? Picture of unity or picture of disunity? So you will either be knowing as a church whether you are a picture of beauty, strength, and unity, or whether you're of confusion, weakness, or disunity.

You will tend to fall on one side or the other. If we want growth, and we're talking about starting churches, we're gonna have a diversity of background come together. We have to have a way to look at that and try to engage with it. It's very im it's very important. I would like to read 1 Corinthians 12:4 through 8 to try to give a even a more broader picture of this idea. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord.

And there are varieties of activities, but is it is the same God who empowers them all in every one? To teach is give I'm sorry. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Let's go back and look at this verse together, these verses. So we're talking about varieties of gifts, varieties of service, and varieties of activities given for the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Now, think about that. And what's the purpose of these varieties of gifts, service, and activities?

They come from the same Spirit, from the same Lord, and from the same God. For what purpose? For the common good. What's the common good mean to you? At the end of verse 6, it says, "Who empowers them all in every one?" To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The common good if we don't have these diverse gifts diversity of gifts in one setting, there's no way for us personally to grow.

If you just have one, or you just have one background, or one gift, or one activity, there's no way for you to grow. You grow by learning about other people's activities and gifts and manifestations. That's how we learn. D.L. Moody said, "The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick beside it." I think this is one of the most powerful concepts to learn and to understand.

And my personal opinion is there's lots of vision here, and I meet a lot of people that have lots of visions to start churches. I would like to inspire the concept to learn how to grow churches that we have. I'm all for starting new, but to create a model and an understanding of it so that as we go out and start new churches, we understand what that looks like. It's my personal passion. You don't have to have that.

First, let's show let's show one another a straight stick, then we will have something exciting to show the world. So a question: How do we bring diversities of backgrounds, varieties of gifts, varieties of service, varieties of activities? How do we bring that together? What would your answer be? So just some things that we have are practicing in our fellowship.

One of the things that we discuss a lot when we recognize that they have the same Spirit, they have the same Lord, and they have the same God, for the common good to profit with all, King James Version says. What's that mean to you? Are you willing to work with these different varieties? If we're looking for church growth, we really do need to a not only answer this question, but live it. I think it's exciting. I think it's fun. I think we need to be very aware of how we how we're growing.

And I think we need to understand that our growth is gonna come from all three avenues: biological, transfer, and conversion. Be aware of it. Face it. Own it. Take ownership of it. I personally think that how well we live this will either be our accelerator or our brake pedal of church growth. It's my personal opinion. So I wanna circle back around and look at this concept again. Diversity of backgrounds, variety of gifts, variety of services, and variety of activities.

What that looks like in a church that all three growth avenues come from. First of all, let's look at a diversity of backgrounds. I want I think it's important that we understand not do not confuse backgrounds with the three with the three varieties that we talked about in Corinthians. I think it's important that we separate that, and this is why. Keep that separate in your mind. How do you bring diversities of backgrounds together? How have you guys been doing that in your churches?

Go back and read that nine nine list of backgrounds that we have in our church. How do you bring that diversity together? What's the common thread that people need to know? Is it just telling them to love Jesus? Is that gonna cut it? I've been in other countries, but I speak as a Westerner, and I think most of you probably speak as Westerners. Western mindset.

My next question to you is: When we think of diverse backgrounds coming together and uniting them under the kingdom of God, how is that going to be accomplished? One of the things that we discuss a lot about is: What of your what is your lens of authority? What is the lens that you look at to Scripture and the kingdom? If you don't figure this out, you're gonna have chaos in your church because we all come with a lens.

If you're in the in the Western world, even in most countries that I other countries I've been into, they have a lens. We've been influenced. There's Protestant influence, Evangelical influence, Calvinist influence, all kinds of religious backgrounds that were influenced, Anabaptist influence. And I think a wonderful like, I love the Anabaptist heritage. If you go back and look at early early Anabaptist, I'm all on board. They're 95% right.

But the Anabaptist we here have today, it's a hybrid of a whole bunch of lenses. So if you wanna grow your church, one of the things that we found very helpful and very uniting is to talk about this: What lens are we is our what is your lens of authority? We have chosen to think about it from the historic faith concept. Some people react to this, and I find that curious.

But if you don't understand and have a lens to dowel the backgrounds in and that we that we understand it through and submit to, you're gonna have a thousand things coming at you, and you're not gonna know how to how to deal with it. I personally think the path to the the lens of which you choose will choose either it'll communicate to you what the true faith wants delivered the faith wants delivered. I wanna know: What is the faith wants delivered?

I think the lens of the historic faith points us in that direction and gives us a with all the different backgrounds, when you're sitting in a room and you're trying to come up with something, if you don't have a looking at Scripture and the kingdom of God in the right in a in a in a everyone trying to come together under that, you're not gonna last very long, and you're not gonna grow very well. I think it's the umbrella that the church needs to come under.

And as the first brother talked about discipleship, this is where discipleship becomes a weekly and a daily discussion. It's constant. It it I am I am still learning to change my lens. I'll continue that to the day I die. So it's not something that you just wake up and grab. As a side note, if you ever wanna read something interesting, read The Prescription Against Heretics by Tertullian. He says, "Christ first delivered the faith. The apostles spread it. They founded the churches.

That faith, therefore, is apostolatic, which descended from the apostles." It's a great read. It it has a lot of good stuff in it. Moving to varieties of gifts. I just broke this down just to give us a perspective of how to how to think about it. There's a lot of gifts that we need in the church, varieties of gifts. But the thing that came to my mind, and I I kinda tried to evaluate why this came to my mind, but why do we need to brighten our tongue when we think of gifts? And this is why.

For some reason, men get jealous of other people's gifts. James 3:10 says, "From the same mouth come blessings and cursings. My brothers, these things are not so to be." If we wanna grow a church, the second thing we need to look at first thing is lens. Second thing is: Is there jealousy among us among the gifts? We all need it to survive. We need one another. Something to think about. Let's look at the next one. I put these two in the same category. Varieties of services and varieties of activities.

Why do we need to prefer our brother? If you ever come to our church for very long and you and you meet Daniel Willis, and if he's discipling you, after you're discipled by him, after 30 times of telling you, "You need to prefer your brother," and the second thing he'll tell you is, "You can't complain and grumble." You can't complain and grumble. You may think this is simple. It is one of the most powerful things you can introduce into a church, that it becomes your culture. It's a big thing today.

You know, it's a buzzword: What's your culture? Your culture should be: Don't complain and grumble. Learn what it means to prefer your brother. Romans 12:9 says, "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection." Think about this: Outdo one another in showing honor. Are you outdoing your brother in showing honor? I challenge you to do that. It is one of the key things of church growth that we miss. We we try to skip it. We try to jump it.

We try to go around it. "Do not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord." If you wanna serve the Lord, learn to outdo one another in showing honor. One of the most powerful things that you can put discipline into your life to do that. Part of church growth is: How are you growing? How are you being developed? If that's not happening, you won't have church growth. So to circle back around: What is your lens to bring the diverse backgrounds together? Are you preferring your brother?

And do you know how to bridle your tongue? I just would like to close with these couple thoughts that leadership in every church needs to understand this. And I think we need to have an I don't know what how else to say this, but an equal amount of time in evangelism and in church development with among us. Now, maybe it's not equal, but if it's not happening at an equal level at some point, we're gonna get lapsed at it, and we're gonna you'll you'll you're gonna collapse on yourself.

And I think we've seen and been among many churches that have done this, and this is one of the reasons. There's other reasons. This has been our experience. We're not healthy. We don't have a healthy church without having both. We know what we know what it's like to be to have churches where it's no evangelism. We know what it's like to see churches where it's all evangelism. Neither are healthy. It's a lot it's a handicap.

Don't allow those two to become competition to one another and to pit pit against each other. Blessings to you. That's all I have to share. Thank you for your time.