In Part 1, I wrote,
The Churches of Christ have very few [megachurches], largely because … [among other reasons] … we have doctrinal barriers that make it difficult for a church to grow large, including our rejection of instrumental music.
My reference to inadequate staff and elder training drew no comment, but as might be expected, the reference to instrumental music certainly did. (I guess we’re more concerned about our musical traditionalism than actually growing — or someone surely would have asked how we might better train leaders so we can grow.)
I don’t know of a single megachurch (churches with over 2,000 adherents, that is, members plus attending children) that are exclusively a cappella. I don’t. If they exist, they just barely top 2,000 members, whereas instrumental churches often grow to several times that size. Why the difference?
I’m sure there are a cappella churches with great greeter programs, youth ministers, friendly members, etc. I know of quite a few, in fact. But they don’t grow very large. Why not?
The same question applies in the context of church plants. A few years ago, I spoke with the leaders of one church planting organization, working within the Churches of Christ. They planted both a cappella and instrumental music churches. I asked which ones grew the most. They had not thought about it and had to do some figuring. They concluded, rather quickly, that their fastest growing plants were all instrumental and that, on average, instrumental churches grow faster — a lot faster. (This caused them to undertake some serious introspection about methods.)
On the other hand, many Churches of Christ have tried to add instrumental music, and a significant number have failed to grow. Many have lost members. Why? Why lose members when you add a second service? Because sometimes the membership sees instrumental music as sinful or else something they must flee to protect their family relations — and so the church bleeds members after the change.
Hence, legalism sometimes easily defeats efforts to change, but when a church is planted with instrumental music, it grows better than a church planted as a cappella — even when the planters aren’t legalistic at all. You see, only a little legalism can be a major turn off.
When you tell visitors to a newly planted house church that the guitar is not permitted because the sponsoring churches oppose instrumental music, you create questions and problems and leave visitors to wonder what other weirdness might be around the corner. I mean, where’s the autonomy? Where’s freedom?
Therefore, I can easily see why in theory instrumental music shouldn’t matter, but I pay attention to what’s going on in the Churches of Christ — and what’s going on is that the a cappella Churches of Christ are, on the whole, in accelerating numerical decline and the fastest growing churches in the country, in many different locations and cultural milieus, are instrumental.
The only exception I know of is the Orthodox Church, which is growing in some places and remains resolutely a cappella. But I see no way to replicate the appeal of Orthodox worship in the Churches of Christ (in terms of practice; we can learn a lot from their theology).
But (and this is important) instrumental music does not guarantee growth. There are countless thousands of instrumental churches in many different denominations that are losing members. Instrumental music is no panacea.
Years ago, I read a book on church growth (I wish I could remember which one) that spoke in terms of the need to eliminate barriers but also to add those things that scripturally promote growth. Going instrumental gives a church no advantage over either other instrumental churches in town or, for that matter, many secular competitors that also have great music. It has to be seen as the removal of a barrier — which is essential and yet not nearly enough.
And there are other barriers we need to get rid of — which will only allow us to tread water for longer. The growth barriers have to go, but then we still have to figure out what promotes growth.
I would nominate the gospel. Properly understood, taught, and lived. Emphasis on “lived.” A focus on Jesus within a fully Trinitarian theology — so that the Spirit and God are all full participants in both our teaching and our worship. Grace — both God’s grace gratefully received and God’s grace changing people into people of grace.
When Churches of Christ becomes known as communities filled with the grace of God, we’ll grow plenty enough.
But I digress …
I’m pretty sure that the demand that instruments NOT be used is the icing of the cake beneath it. The growth is stagnated by the DEMAND that traditions be honored over the freedom and flexibility that God allows.. This exposes the underlying legalism and control that operates the various other functions within the organization.. That’s why it’s dying.. The “my way or the highway” attitude has long been rejected. The attitude of WE ALONE are the One True Church is an arrogance not often imitated. Go on any CoC Facebook group and see how the discussions quickly turn into condemning the Baptists or the Catholics.. or any of those evil “denominations.” It’s pitiful.. The Log in the eye has turned into a forest… and what does the Bible say.. Without Vision the people perish…
Instrumental church is totally irrelevant to church growth. There, I said it.
The first century church grew pretty effectively without it. There are other serious reasons why churches don’t grow. Look for the root cause or you’ll never fix it.
Edit: Instrumental music, not instrumental church…..
As a former Elder, you must include the Eldership as a possible barrier. The Eldership originated from the OT tribal organizational structure much like you have in some of the Middle East countries. We left the tribal structure many years ago for a hierarchical business CEO like structure evident in the Pastor led community led churches. Unfortunately, too many of our Elders do not know the scriptures and are unable to teach and have lost the spiritual leadership respect of the congregation giving that responsibility to the university/ seminary trained minister/pastor in favor of a ” leadership board of directors ” model. Naturally the minister/pastor model eventually becomes the respected spiritual leader by the members because he is almost the exclusive spiritual teacher in the church. Tension between the minister and Eldership over who ‘s ultimately in charge inhibits growth or stops all together because of splits in the membership.
Hi,
Jim – please consider reading this on how eldership is not derived on the OT: http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/gtj/06-2_315.pdf
Could one of you CoC men answer a question – One of the distinctives of CoC is no instrumental music. Yet the church in Jerusalem met together in the temple where music was prominently featured.
How do you understand that one particular? Do you disagree the temple featured music, or do you argue that the early Christians made a severe cut with all temple observance? Thanks.
Tragically, I have read articles that said people must condemn the use of IM and if you don’t think the use of IM is a major sin, even if you don’t use it, then you are running the risk of going to hell.
This is sad.
Jim Haugland,
That is why in jewish temples today, the board is in charge of everything including (not) renewing the rabbi’s contract. However the rabbi and frequently the cantor too are the spiritual leaders and the teachers. Yes, cantors go to seminary which is very similar to rabbinical training.
Protestant Cathedrals have the dean who is the spiritual leader of the congregation and the verger who is in charge in everything else, building, finance, etc.
The good thing about a board is that you can include both genders and you can have experts on it who really contribute (and you get them for free).
Most people in the church of Christ grew up in it so their parents were members and for many, membership went even further back in their lineage. Their kinfolks believed instrumental music in church was a sin and disobedient to the commandment word “sing”.
This is just one belief and practise of the body of Christ that is changing.
It would be easier to change the name by adding an “A to the name and calling ourselves “A Church of Christ” meaning one of the many that would fit these changes than to keep trying to change the existing churches of Christ and their long held beliefs. All denominations members know the main teaching of the church of Christ and teach their children when seeing one that they are the ones that believe they are the only ones going to heaven and we are all going to hell. Why keep fighting against and to overcome that?
Why not leave them alone, let them believe what they want and allow them to believe and continue teaching that they are the few going to heaven while we are among the many?
In many ways, we are doing exactly what we condemn them for when we have as our topic theme their conservatism just as we condemn them for doing so against the denominations in their teaching and sermons. Stop and listen to us, change the names and the sounds we are making sounds very familiar doesn’t it.
Do we want to build our congregations the same way they built theirs? If so, we should expect the same long term result as is happening to them.
History DOES repeat itself.
I think the big obvious elephant in the room is that we can’t grow large churches through legalism and focus on a rule based church. Having no instruments is symptomatic of a legalistic paradigm. Church growth is a gift from God. God creates growth by his mercy. We can’t force growth. The lost are attracted to grace and love. Hammering consistently on how “we are right and everyone else is wrong” is a negative approach to running a church and has proven to be an abject failure. The lost are looking for hope, grace, love, forgiveness, and change. Where they find it they join.
As an aside the Wikipedia article on A cappella is quite interesting and mentions that in some times and places instruments were used to “double” the voices but that the singing was still considered to be a cappella. Also, some American Greek Orthodox churches do use instrumental music. It would be interesting to know if they grow faster than their sister congregations that do not use instrumental music.
As a CoC Christian I have visited congregations on both ends of the spectrum , the most conservative, and the most liberal, never fail to bring this small, but important verse to my mind.
Luk 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
I think to myself that is exactly what is happening to the “body of Christ” once again. I can only hope that Luk 23:34 applies in this situation as well. I don’t see the condition of the CoC as a reason for blame, I see it as more reason for prayer. Yes we are throwing the dies once again, just hoping they don’t come up “snake eyes”.
I have yet to grasp the connection others seem to be making between expanding the kingdom and making our individual organizations larger. It seems that there is an assumption that the path to the former is the latter. But this seems rather like the idea that we should end homelessness by building onto our own houses. Jay previously identified the advantage of a larger congregation as being fiscal economies of scale, but I simply cannot find any indication that this is a kingdom priority. God is not on a fixed income. Generosity, even lavishness, is clearly characteristic of our Father. Efficiency by consolidation of limited assets may be how we run our own houses, but does not seem to be much about what God has called us to do.
For the record, I think Jay is partially right about CoC’s not having what it takes to build a large, complex organization. But I am not so sure that is a bad thing.
Ted,
Thanks for the article on elders. I agree that Christian elders have a charge that distinguishes them from other kinds of First Century elders, but wouldn’t go so far as to say that there is no rootedness in the synagogue or OT elderships. After all, they chose a word for the position that carried very real meaning.
Moreover, Miller wrote before more recent studies on the synagogues that point out the Mishnah and Talmud cannot be reliably used to define early First Century practices. The current thought is to find First Century practices from Second Temple literature — the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, as well as the NT, primarily — and the use of more contemporary sources often leaves us uncertain about many things. (The Talmud was written around 500 AD and reflects very heavy influence from after the destruction of the Temple. Post-destruction Judaism was necessarily very different from pre-destruction, and this difference surely affected the synagogues quite a lot.)
For example, I’m not sure the details of the synagogues officials Miller offers can be shown to date all the way to apostolic times. Certainly, the presence of elders and a “president” can be. I’m not so sure about the rest. (His sources are other scholarly works. He doesn’t give us the primary source materials, which is a bit frustrating.)
In short, yes, the Christian congregation was not organized exactly like the Jewish synagogues. Clearly. But I can’t imagine that the apostles chose to use the language of the synagogue (“elders”) without intending to incorporate some of the old concepts — but certainly not all.
In fact, the idea may be to go back to the judges appointed in Numbers, so that synagogues and churches have a common source. After all, ekklesia refers to the Israelites as a congregation when assembled in the wilderness during the Exodus. That highly suggests that “elder” goes back to Numbers 11.
(Num 11:16-17 ESV) 16 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.”
These men were given a special indwelling of the Spirit, empowering them as leaders. The connection is not obvious to many modern readers because the presence of the Spirit seems to make these men very different from modern elders, and yet the scriptures repeatedly tell us that being an elder is a giftedness from the Spirit (Eph 4, for example).
And so if we think in those terms, it’s easy to see that the Christian “elder” goes back to Numbers 11 — men equipped and empowered by the Spirit to serve as under-shepherds to Jesus himself (as opposed to Moses).
Now, the Sanhedrin was a Jewish effort at replicating the same thing, but the church saw the need for a very different kind of elder, and, I think, went back to the roots of the concept, the earliest God-ordained elders serving God’s ekklesia.
If I’m right, then we completely mess up when we select elders without consideration of the influence of the Spirit on them. To me, elder selection is primarily congregational discernment of the giftedness of the Spirit for that service. And Churches of Christ routinely get that wrong — ordaining within a rules-based paradigm only, and then complaining about who they themselves ordained.
Better to let the Spirit do the selecting and the church discern the workings of the Spirit.
Ted,
Regarding the Temple, it’s a good question. The early Christians remained practicing Jews and worshiped at the Temple — instrumental music, Levite choir, and all.
Gary,
I had no idea that some Orthodox had gone IM. But it makes sense. One of the big changes Orthodoxy is undergoing is for the Orthodox to give up their ethnic identities (Greek, Russian, etc) as immigrant churches and become American Orthodox — allowing the Orthodox to adopt practices suitable to contemporary America rather than serving to preserve a piece of, say, Greece for an immigrant population. As you can imagine, this is no easy transition.
Charles,
Some time ago, you asked me whether there any advantages to scale in a church. I suggested that economies of scale are one — not necessarily the most important and certainly not the only advantage.
I’d point out that the NT churches were very large, being one congregation per city. Jerusalem was a congregation of many thousands under a single eldership — and yet this happened in a setting where it would have been very difficult to have a large church. After all, they couldn’t build big buildings and there were no telephone trees or email databases. Getting the word out to 5,000 households was surely daunting. It would have been far easier to have house churches — all autonomous. But that’s not the choice they made.
Why? Well, I suspect it was because they saw the church as the Kingdom, an alternative society that would rival Rome itself, with Jesus as King. Kingdoms don’t divide for convenience. (They’d read Daniel’s prophecies.)
Moreover, unity was seen as a major theme of the gospel — which we routinely ignore. Unity did not mean “agreeing on a position paper” but eating together and working in concert as the body of Christ to continue his mission. To the Eastern mind, unity is not an abstraction but a lifestyle — and we see this in Paul’s several letters urging churches not to divide and insisting that Jews and Gentiles meet together and treat one another as fellow Christians despite their cultural differences.
And this led to huge economies of scale — making the church capable of powerful works (by the Spirit, of course). For example, a church of 30 would struggle to send out a 4-man missionary team to spend years preaching gospel in Asia Minor. Imagine the effect on our history had the church in Antioch been too small to support Paul and his team! Imagine Antioch’s leaders having to go to 20 other churches to raise support, and each church feeling the right to direct Paul’s team and question his decisions!
A divided church of 100s of small autonomous congregations would not have these sorts of things happen —
God used the size the Jerusalem church to intimidate the authorities long enough to let the church be firmly established.
Division is weakness. Multiple small congregations are, by NT standards, a form of division. And if we are family and a single new Jesus-ethnicity, and the same kingdom, why be separate? What’s the scriptural argument for separation?
The historical reason for separation is to avoid the taint of the error of others. Hence, Baptists don’t meet with Methodists. And we in the CoC blindly copied this Reformation-era foolishness believing God would celebrate our purity, redefining “unity” as “unity with those who agree with me on everything I think matters.”
In modern terms, when tornados and hurricanes hit (and I’ve seen some of those close up), it’s not the house churches and unattached individuals who make the biggest difference. It’s the churches that are big enough — or that cooperate well enough with other churches — to rebuild houses, refurnish houses, feed thousands of volunteer workers, and clean up entire counties of debris.
My church served as a major provider of housing for visiting church volunteer groups. There were a few individuals but it was mainly large groups from large churches that showed up and helped us dig out, some staying for weeks at a time. And we really needed and appreciate the help.
And it required the resources of large churches to coordinate all this. I mean, I just can’t imagine how Tuscaloosa would have dug out had all our churches been house churches. It was the big churches that took the lead, provided volunteer leadership, and interfaced with the governmental agencies.
There were no hotel rooms, no empty apartments, but plenty of church classroom spaces for an air mattress. And we are big enough to have a kitchen and showers (in the baptistry dressing rooms) — allowing us to host many thousands of volunteers for weeks on end. It’s an expensive building, but it proved invaluable in the impact it had on all of Tuscaloosa. We were thrilled to have something to share with those in need.
Hi Jay,
Thanks for your judicious words on NT eldership and the OT and the 1st C synagogue system. To say, as I did, there no relationship is too far as you rightly point out. And all your points are excellent.
re: eldership as possessing an enabling gift of the Spirit – do you have anything written to point me to? i.e., Eph. 4 not an office?
re: the ecclesia in Numbers – just keep in mind, ecclesia is not the exact equivalent of the Hebrew qahal, nor was the congregation in the wilderness called an ecclesia until the LXX (200 BC).
SimpleElder,
I’ve written on this subject several times but it’s easier just to list a few scriptures —
(Eph 4:7, 11-12 ESV) 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. … 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
(1Co 12:28 NET) And God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, gifts of leadership, different kinds of tongues
(Rom 12:1 ESV) 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
(Act 20:28 ESV) 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
Add to these the background of Num 11, showing elders to be specifically gifted by the Spirit for the work of an elder, it all fits together rather nicely.
SimpleElder wrote,
True, but it’s a fact that Paul wrote in Greek, and the OT is written in Hebrew. When Paul (and others) used ekklesia to refer to the church, he was writing to people for whom the Septuagint was their Bible. Most Jews living west of Judea did not speak Hebrew and the Septuagint was, essentially, their KJV.
Hence, when Paul said “ekklesia,” the reference to the Jewish community gathered in the wilderness to hear the Law or to make covenant with YHWH would have been clearly heard to people many of whom would have memorized the Torah.
The Hebrews writer says of Jesus —
(Heb 2:11-12 ESV) 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”
He uses ekklesia to refer to the Israelite qahal, which he equates to the church.
So some scholars disagree (and when is that not true regarding anything?), but to me, respecting the Jewish roots of Christianity, it makes sense to see an analogy (or typology) between Israel in the wilderness and the church. Indeed, N. T. Wright, in Paul and the Faithfulness of God, makes a major point of how the analogy to the exodus underlies much of Paul’s theology — and I find that the more I think in these terms, the more amazing correspondences I find and the more the scriptures make sense.
Jay,
Many times I hear comments that seem to be saying that the whole of early Christians stayed in Jerusalem until being pressed out by persecution. I have not found many that have expounded upon how those who left Jerusalem to go back home lived the same guidelines for their worship gatherings as have been evidenced in the city. I guess that the Eunuch must have been directly inspired as he continued on his way. I can visualize the early church at Jerusalem reacting to fill the need and send out those men to do mission work very much like the events in the Colonies early in the history of our country as they were gathered together to oppose the British. As you mentioned there was not quick easy communication available, but we don’t actually have a time line given as to the chain of events or duration of time while these events were being fulfilled. I do have a problem seeing 3000 + later 5000 all being able to meet as as one body as we visualize that many being able to gather together today, Has anyone projected a concept of the percentage of inhabitants of Jerusalem who became Christians as we read of the church there? Of course, I still do not understand how Moses was able to communicate with over 1,000,000 of the Israelite Nation as they came out of bondage. This all makes us look very inadequate. Being an Elder yourself could you give us an idea how an Eldership today could shepherd over a flock of 8000 with the same technology that was available back then?
Hi Jay, (sometime the system logs me as asimpleelder)
We are agreed on elders, brother, the point of the post. I’m an elder now, and “grew up” in a very large eldership church (no congregational votes). So long as the elders were scrupulously chosen by the elder qualification, the flock was cared for. We had at times 30-50 elders.
If I may, the thing that concerns me a bit on Chrstiainty being the new exodus is 1) it’s always an “implicit” argument, but never an implicit one in the text of the NT. My own study has found that where great scholars assert a new exodus motif to the text, there are better explanations of that text.
2) When Jesus says, “I will build My church” he speaks of the future, not something that has already been built. Indeed, the apostles are foundation stones, not beams and girders and supports. ecclesia was a “secular” word that simply meant a group called out for a gathering and prior to Xtnty is never used in the secular world of a religious gathering, except a couple locations in the LXX, where it fits that secualr meaning.
Notice how Luke uses the word in Acts 19:32, 39, 40. With no hesitation, knowing his reader(s) would instantly get it and make a distinction between the “religious” and the “secular.”
Jesus defined his ecclesia with 2 meanings – a universal gathering in Mat. 16;18 and a local gathering in 18:17 with institutional functions. This is all new and imo has nothing to do with a new exodus motif. Heb. 2:12 fits the first definition.
Jay,
Isn’t it true that there have been a lot of 1,000+ member churches of Christ, but that number has declined? I seem to remember a lot of churches that were once thriving, but later settled into a mindset of “we did our part – now it is time for the younger folks to do theirs” and upon settling into that mindset, almost immediately started to decline and decay.
As Jesus put it in His letter to the saints in Ephesus in the Revelation Jesus gave to John, “you have lost your first love…”. When a congregation loses its love affair with Jesus as a corporate body together, decline and decay are soon living among them. We don’t need “new programs and ministries; we need a renewed spirit and a humble heart. We need more of the gospels and less of the unique marks of the first century church. We aren’t to be church followers, but rather to be followers of Jesus. Despite our stated intentions to the contrary, these two things are NOT the same. One produces churchmen while the other produces disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus and are faithful with what has been entrusted to them.
So then, why the decline and decay? Bad choices that seemed harmless at the time for a lack of vision and experience. Loss of focus nearly always results in decline and decay. Pretending it has nothing to do with what they did and did not do is a good way to accelerate the decline and decay. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of case studies to prove what I am claiming both in the scriptures AND in the collective experiences of even just the members who comment on your blogs.
When we choose poorly, we suffer the consequences. When we choose wisely, we again suffer the consequences of our decisions … only the consequences of making a wise choice always turn out for the best in the long run. Living in denial only prevents us from making any positive progress.
Grizz
Why should the shrinkage or even dissolution of a local group be a bad thing? Where did we get the idea that a religious group we establish is supposed to last indefinitely? If such a shrinkage means people departing faith in Christ, I am concerned. If all it means is that something we made has ended its usefulness, I am not.
Grizz asked,
I’ve not heard that statistic but wouldn’t doubt it. Churches often reached good size because of demographics — people relocating to an urban area and X church being the best CoC in the area. The urbanization of the South in the last 30 years led to many large congregations.
But those congregations are now struggling with younger members (50 or younger) who weren’t raised on Five Acts of Worship and who may have never heard a lesson on AC music but with older members and some younger members who moved in from other churches who define “saved” as “scripturally worshiping and organized.”
Even 20 years of teaching grace does not root out all the bad doctrine that our members were raised on, and many have family connections where they’d be embarrassed to attend a non-traditional CoC.
Hence, 1,000-member churches often struggle to find an identity that will (a) allow for further growth (transfer opportunities are drying up and so the only remaining growth strategy is to reach the truly lost) and (b) not run off beloved members who’ve attended for 50 years. Legalism is a deadly poison and as hard to remove as leaven in bread (to borrow a metaphor).
Elderships struggle with the transition, and some churches have handled it well and others poorly, but none without pain. Change is always hard.
Larry,
You raise some interesting questions.
1. After Pentecost, it’s likely that the visitors from other nations stayed around for a while to learn from the apostles. Travel in those days was very expensive and very slow. People didn’t go to Judea for a 3-day vacation. They went to stay for weeks, or else the travel would have taken longer than the visit itself.
Moreover, the travelers would not have felt the need to get back in a hurry. That’s for us Westerners with our wristwatches. Travel was so uncertain, no one could know for sure which week he’d return, and so arrangements back home would have been made that would allow the travelers to be gone for an indefinite time. (Misreading Scripture book we studied a few weeks ago has a great chapter on the Eastern concept of time.)
So that’s just a guess, but I think it’s a pretty good one.
2. Meeting as a church of 3,000 or more was actually easy — the Temple courts were public spaces, suitable for a very large gathering, and plenty big enough. Herod built the courts so large they were bigger than the mountain top — and so he built massive stone walls to allow extra space to the filled in. That is, the courts were nearly as large as his ego.
Of course, speaking to such a large crowd seem unimaginable in this age of electronic sound amplification — but in the 19th Century, Spurgeon preached to crowds in the 1,000s without a microphone. It took special training, but there are men gifted to do that. Willard Collins had such a big voice that he had congregations turn the microphones OFF as unnecessary. He overpowered the electronics! Beside, I imagine the teaching largely took place in the houses, and the gathering at the Temple was mainly for the sake of prayer (the Temple was a “house of prayer”) and we forget how seriously the early church took that need.
3. It would be very hard to shepherd such a large church as we understand “shepherd” today. I mean, the apostles would have spent literally all their time at funerals and hospital visitations in a church that large. And can you imagine the time and difficulty of counseling members with troubled marriages and unruly children. Just the “pastoral” burden would be overwhelming with just 12 apostles acting as elders.
But I don’t see the apostles doing those sorts of things. They described their role in Acts 6 as the ministry of the word and prayer. And I imagine that meant leading prayers at the Temple more than prayers in a quiet private room. Why not pray at the best place on the planet to pray when it’s just a few blocks away? That’s how First Century Jews thought about the Temple.
Teaching, we know from Acts 2, was largely house to house. And so they likely organized into neighborhood sub-churches, so that an apostle could visit the home of Br. Jakob and quickly gather all the brothers and sisters nearby (houses were tight up against each other — no yards to speak of) for a lesson.
Their way of “doing church” might have been very different from our own — with apostles and other gifted teachers going literally house to house, perhaps every night of the week visiting a different home — to teach the gospel to new converts.
“Worship” would have centered on common meals, house-based, probably based on where people lived, and the meal plus the Lord’s Supper, prayers, greeting with the Holy Kiss, a few hymns, and a time of fellowship (Eastern style, meaning no real time limit) were likely the substance of the event. No sermons but classes, and those might be taught at a different time entirely — all plus a weekly trip to the Temple for a word of encouragement from the apostles plus a lengthy time of prayer.
Speculating, I admit, but that seems to make sense to me.
Larry,
You asked about the millions of Israelites. That number has always been problematic and never really fit the historical context. The cities they conquered, for example, would have held only a few thousand at most, and yet they didn’t act as though they outnumbered their opponents 1000 to 1. In fact, the text repeatedly describes Israel as the smallest of nations — which would not be true if they numbered in the millions.
Therefore, even very conservative commentators believe there has been a translation or transcription error. Here’s a link to one very sensible alternative: http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/exodus_population.html
Not all large churches today are successful ones. I have been in a couple large churches (~ 3000) where the preacher was the main attraction and when he was out of town only half the members showed up. Many only came to hear a good speaker. They weren’t devoted to personal prayer, or personal Bible study, or service, or evangelism. They came to be entertained. So, lest we rush to read all the newest church growth books, we need to know WHY they are growing. Is it because lives are being transformed or is it because they get their once-a-week fix?
If the church isn’t causing real disciples to be made, if the leaders are not humble, if the church isn’t digging deeper into the whole word of God, and if the members aren’t getting involved in each others lives… then the church may swell but it isn’t growing.
The church is a garden not a factory. As we read the NT we see Jesus talking about fruit when he discusses growth. God causes fruit to grow. We have turned the church into a factory where we come up with formulas for growth, apply the formulas, and expect guaranteed results. Heck, with all the church growth gimmicks, we don’t need God to help us. We just create a Christian factory and any day now we will see results. The factory model takes our flesh to run. The garden model humbly relies on God to provide the growth. So in our rush for growth we need to as ourselves… are we listening to God’s voice and following his lead?
Charles,
I agree. Outlived usefulness is wasting resources.
Grizz
Jay Guin says:
February 2, 2014 at 12:06 pm
Grizz asked,
Isn’t it true that there have been a lot of 1,000+ member churches of Christ, but that number has declined?
Jay,
I agree with your answer. For various reasons, at least some of which were organizational issues, some once-great congregations have declined. I would also venture to say that some underwent a transition during which marginal members (there for entertainment or duty-only purposes) were allowed, if not encouraged, to leave. And I do not necessarily see that as a bad thing.
The first church I was hired to preach FT for underwent such a transition, though we probably did not realize it fully at the time. We went from an average attendance of 65 to an average attendance of 145 in less than 16 months while more than 40 of the original attendees died during that time. It may sound harsh, but it was a good thing in the long run and allowed for sustained growth that continued long after I left that place.
And, Yes, I do realize that my example was a small congregation in the rural midwest in a small farming community and was NOT a 1,000+ strong membership. Still, I have no doubt it could have been if we had continued in the same vein for a longer period. You might say that leaving was later to become one of my biggest regrets in ministry.
Grizz
Jay,
I visited the link that you have suggested, and of course it has presented a huge amount of logical evidence to the numbers of the Israelite Nation. I had never been exposed to the numbers of 3,000,000 of Israel crossing the Red Sea possibly one half of that number, but a lot of information provided by the authors as their reasoning surely distorts much of the actual text of the scriptures. I could be more easily convinced if someone could identify that a specific word which was translated really was mistranslated and could see consistency through the balance of scriptures. One thing that seems a concern to me would be, The Pharaoh of Egypt having concerns of the Israelites becoming a mightier nation than Egypt. I am not done with my research in this area but in noticing the scripture references given for the size of the Israelite Nation being fewer than the other nations, IMO not always in references to the total population. The authors portray numbers like 20,000 to 40,000 for the total population, just how many men over the age of 20 would you consider there to be, much less those who were able to go to war? This volume of men would surely scare the Canaanites? Whom I understood were a vast majority larger nation than Israel, ie: the first spies reports.
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Larry
Have you checked out- http://www.bible.ca/…/bible-archeology-exodus-route-population-of-jews-hebr...
Some good info there.
Monty,
Could you repost the link? The link is abbreviated in the comment in such a way that it won’t take us to the article.
I think it is very, very difficult for us to wash the church organizational model as we know it out of our heads long enough to consider what church life might have been like in the first century. We unconsciously merge the two, picturing the Phillippians as an autonomous congregation that walks and talks and operates pretty much like we do, but in togas and sandals. Fortunately, I do not find in scripture any obligation to mimic early forms ad infinitum. So, if I can find godly principles– and even caveats– in the NT narrative of the early church in action, that suits me. Stretching similarities is probably not very useful. The church at Jerusalem was probably less like an American megachurch than a 50-member local congregation in Nashville is like that American megachurch. “They had a lot of people, so what did they do?” is a question that raises more questions than answers, and uncovers more assumptions than facts, if one is seeking guidance for how to grow a Big American Church.
I guess I don’t understand the fascination with how large or how small the early church was or with how the early large church elder’s were able to shepherd large churches. Moses was told to appoint men: Exodus 18:25 “He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.” When we have been stuck in a small church model with 3 elders over 100 people then it is hard to fathom how to shepherd 1000’s. This shouldn’t be an issue. If 100 members have 3 elders then a thousand members obviously have more elders. The church places leaders over various groups and everyone’s needs are met.
Our problem is more systemic than how to handle a large crowd. Our problem is how to break the chains of legalism and get members to be real followers of Jesus who will love each other and love the lost. This is a simple problem of multiplication. If most members are fully committed to loving each other and loving the lost, visitors will flock, the church will grow rapidly and God will provide the leaders/elders to shepherd.
Jay said,
“Monty,
Could you repost the link? The link is abbreviated in the comment in such a way that it won’t take us to the article.”
Maybe the quickest way is to just Google – “how many Jews left Egypt,” it’ll be right at the top. http://www.bible.ca/, or the name of the article is, “The number of the Exodus Jews.”
Regardless of the size of the church, it seems to me the important metric is the “Alive-ness” of the church. I have mentioned the church I attend during my winters in Florida. It is a instrumental Christian Church and it is a sure enough Rock and Roll Praise band with a Coffee bar kind of a Church. But the thing that caught my attention the first time I attended this church was the sense that this church was very alive. There was a great diversity of people, not just young and old but Black and White and Brown and everyone just seemed happy to be in Church together. So far this winter there have been baptisms every Sunday and people are placing their membership at this church in numbers that most Church of Christ congregations might consider impossible (6 last Sunday). People’s lives are being changed regularly and they witness about those changes to the congregation on a regular basis. The church has grown from about 600 to almost 1200 in Sunday morning attendance in the 4 years that I have been involved with them.
Now I don’t care if the church is large or small but if it possesses this “Alive-ness”, I don’t think that it will be small very long. So, the question is: Is your church alive?
Doug,
So, you’re saying get a Rock-n-Roll band and get ready for growth! 🙂
Seriously, though, can you put your finger(or hand)on why you’ve grown? How long were you at 600 and when did things start taking off?
Doug,
I am in full agreement with what you said and would note for Monty that Doug came nowhere near your total mischaracterization of his post. In your jealousy you forgot to mention the Coffee Bar at all, for one thing. There is no real mystery why some churches are ‘alive’ and others are not. Those churches/congregations/assemblies of believers who take following Jesus seriously all the way through to sharing the gospel regularly and effectively (God takes care of the fruit following the sowing of the gospel seed) will see regular growth. Too many people get hung up on numbers while forgetting all about the multitudes leaving faster than they seem to be able to dunk new ones. That does not happen with an ‘alive’ congregation, as Doug noted about the congregation where he is. You don’t go from 600 to 1200 in four years by keeping the good news to yourself or by losing more out the back door than you have coming in the front. I have known and known of a lot of preachers who blamed losses on the weakness of the conversions. They are blind to their own problems. Atrophy is the normal condition of a body whose members are treated like they are paralyzed – by being pushed aside, disregarded, and under-utilized in the core daily life of the congregation. So when you have atrophy (decline and decay for those who are unfamiliar with the word, but not the condition) you are looking at an unhealthy approach to daily life as a body. Normal and healthy are NOT equivalent in this case. Preachers and elders and deacons and others in the body are all prone to sugarcoat things at first when something is going wrong. New programs, new classes, new fellowship schedules and all kinds of other ‘fixes’ are thrown together, but the one thing really needed (checking for a pulse – a sign of real life) is missing because too many who consider themselves good doctors in the church are actually poor diagnosticians.
Jesus was a no-nonsense kind of preacher. He said that the branches that remain in the Vine WILL BEAR MUCH FRUIT TO THE GLORY OF THE FATHER. He also said that the branches that DO NOT BEAR MUCH FRUIT WILL BE CUT OFF AND CAST INTO THE FIRE. That seems to point to just one real difference between the healthy and unhealthy branches … fruit-bearing versus barren. Is a branch bearing fruit? It is alive. Is a branch barren? It is NOT alive.
I have been a church-game player who showed overwhelming amounts of activity and bore no fruit, but most church-y folk were too embarrassed by their comparative lack of action to challenge me about it. Then I had some true friends who called me on being a player and not a Christian. That was when I began an honest relationship with Jesus and fruit-bearing became an everyday part of my life. Did I suddenly get brilliantly effective with a new methodology overnight? Of course NOT! Did I quit playing games and give my whole life to Jesus without reserve? Absolutely. So how did that really change things? God uses the humble and I felt I came with practically nothing worthwhile to share. But I had the one thing I really needed: genuinely good news to share that God has a place for even scumbags who spent most of their lives conning the church folk back home. I wasn’t instantly mature in Christ, but I was instantly clean and grateful.
When grateful people are given an opportunity to be an integral part of what a congregation is about, God uses that to infuse life throughout the Vine. You don’t have to lie and tell them how wonderful they are at everything. God uses the bruised reads and dimly lit wicks to clear a path and light the way. If you are being used by God, praise Him for His miraculous power that can even work through someone like you. If you are not being used by God, praise Him for using others and humble yourself so that you can become suitable for His purposes again. The master carpenter uses one or two tools at a time (even when there are hundreds in the shop) to accomplish his goals. Just because the chisel has been set aside for awhile it doesn’t mean it will never be used again. It just means that the work doesn’t require a chisel right now. But if I am chisel, you can be sure I will remain available – even if it means I get used as a substitute screwdriver when the screwdriver is nowhere to be found. If anyone can make that work, God can. McGuyver has nothing on God when it comes to creative innovation.
The point is, God keeps the branches that are well-connected to the Vine in fruit-bearing mode. If the fruit-bearing stops, then it is time for the Gardener to give that branch some immediate attention to remedy what ails it or to cut it off to prevent the rest of the branches from losing nutrients to a dead, unfruitful branch.
It isn’t always that we are a chisel laid aside for a time, nor that the fruit we are bearing is maturing instead of reproducing. I have heard that cop-out a lot in my 53+ years. Not all branches bear the same amount of fruit. True. But all healthy branches bear some fruit. Take a hard look at yourself. Are you or are you NOT bearing fruit? If you are, you are alive in the Vine and not at all in danger of being cut off and cast into the fire. If you haven’t born fruit for a long time, beware the pruning shears! Draw deep from the Vine and get back to doing what branches are designed to do. When a branch gets pruned, it isn’t because the branch was blameless.
Maybe Monty can read this and see why some are alive – with or without the rock band and coffee bar. And maybe he can also see why some folks who are alive would find themselves able to function with a rock band and a coffee bar.
Grizz
I am familiar with one church that grew for reasons they still don’t understand. They are apolitical and are “back in business” after being on the way out until a few years ago. No coffee house nor praise band.
Monty, I certainly did not say “get a Rock-n-Roll band and get ready for growth”. What I said was a church that is alive is ready for growth. Maybe you have forgotten what an alive church looks and feels like. If so, don’t feel bad because I too had forgotten until I found myself in one.
This Church had gone through some tough times and events. I went to it a while back (before the rock and roll praise band and coffee bar) and found it like many other Churches I had attended. But about 4 years ago I went back and found a different church. I was very impressed with both the growth and with the spirit of aliveness and actually I went to visit the minister because I wanted to bottle what I was seeing and feeling and take it back to my home church. I asked the minister what had happened and what was the “magic” behind what I saw and felt. He didn’t really answer my questions but eventually said that people saw lives being changed and that changed everything. Lives being changed… I saw and heard a testimony last week from a young couple who experienced a lot of difficulty in their lives. Thanks to what they had learned from this church they were victorious and stayed the course and not only that but the husband became the spiritual leader of his family. They said that wouldn’t have happened a couple of years ago… changed lives!
Also, everything this church does, they do it very, very well. Worship is well planned and executed. Everything is coordinated and everyone knows their jobs and does them. Also, the preaching is excellent! No shouted sermons…just a discussion with several points well made and supported with a lot of scripture. Just like the minister I talked to, I can’t explain it but it is exciting and I think it’s something all of should experience a time or two.
Doug and Grizz
I guess some people can’t understand someone being facetious and making an attempt at humor, even when they put a smiley face on their facetiousness. Maybe I just don’t understand emoticons. I thought the smiley face thing meant an attempt at humor was being put forth.
I asked, “Seriously, though, can you put your finger(or hand)-another attempt at humor- on why you’ve grown? How long were you at 600 and when did things start taking off?”
What part of that question leads you to believe that I wasn’t seriously enquiring about the growth of your church? I was genuinely interested in what you had to say. Not so much now. Sort of at a loss for words here. But obviously attacking someone when you feel threatened(or perceived it as a put down) even though that was never my attention, is Christ like, or maybe not.
Monty,
You seem to have missed the point of my reply. Didn’t catch the humor, sorry. Still don’t get it. I’m dense that way sometimes.
The point is to see what ‘alive’ really is. It is puzzling that you would miss what you say you were looking for. Alive, according to Jesus, is fruit-bearing. Dead, also according to Jesus, is NOT bearing fruit. John 15 is pretty simple and straightforward.
Does this help?
Grizz
Glenn said,
“Doug,I am in full agreement with what you said and would note for Monty that Doug came nowhere near your total mischaracterization of his post. In your jealousy you forgot to mention the Coffee Bar at all, for one thing.”
Glenn, I have no axe to grind with Doug, and I certainly didn’t “mischaracterize” his post. I knew full well that he wasn’t saying “get a rock band and magic growth starts happening.” That’s why I said, “but seriously” immediately after I said that and put the smiley face emoticon. Perhaps, a poor attempt at humor, but an attempt that surely (IMHO) should have been recognized at a bare minimum. Perhaps, my bad, was trying to kid with someone I don’t know personally and there’s always a risk there. A risk I shouldn’t have taken and I’ll be wiser next time around with whomever I speak with on here.
As far as being “jealous”, jealous of what? That another church that I know nothing about is experiencing tremendous growth? May God’s Kingdom be ever increased! That they had rock music? Nah, I prefer a cappella. Though, I’m fine with IM. That they have a coffee bar? You may have a point there. I was actually applauding Doug’s church. Why would I be wanting to know more about another church’s growth if all I was doing was trying to shoot it down? That’s fuzzy logic to me. I certainly was interested in getting Doug’s opinion of anything he could put his finger on as to why they were growing, at the same time understanding there is no cookie-cutter approach.
It’s a pretty simplistic answer(although completely true) to just say things like “the reason is the Holy Spirit, ” or “anything alive bears fruit.” Who could disagree with that? But I thought Jay and others were discussing the “particulars” of growth or no growth, and certain trends. Again, I was looking for real insights .
Glenn, I don’t know if your response to me is what set Doug off or not. But I certainly meant no ill will. Sort of hard to insult someone and then say, “now tell me all about your church.” I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m smarter than that. I do apologize for my poor attempt at humor. The jealousy thing? No jealousy here. Just a humble desire to learn, grow, and be more productive for the Master. Peace.
Monty, I didn’t mean my reply to come across as an attack and I’d even go so far as to suggest if you took it that way, then you don’t have too much experience in being attacked. I tried to respond to your question in my reply to you and even mentioned that I went to the minister of this church because I more-or-less had the same question that you asked me, i.e. what are you doing that causes this growth? The answer I received was not a list of things that need to ne implemented. It was “Change Lives”! Apparently, there is something infectious about seeing people’s lives being changed into the image of God. The more lives that are changed, the more lives that will be changed. When a man looks at you and tells you that he wasn’t the spiritual leader of his home but now he is… the more you want to see more people changed like him. If lives are not being changed at your church, your church is more or less…dead. And if that’s the case, no growth should be expected.
incidentally, this “alive” church is not my home church. My home church is a traditional downtown Church of Christ that isn’t changing many lives. It is a larger Church of Christ with an average Sunday attendance of around 320-340 but I can see it slowly dying and it seems that there is little that I can do to change that. I can see young people leaving and their parents just waiting for Mom and Pop to die so that they can leave too. I am not in leadership and never will be because of my non-traditional Church of Christ views and everything I have ever suggested to leadership has been ignored. I just get to go enjoy this “Alive” church during the winter and it restores me to be there a few months. I’d recommend that everyone take a sabbatical and go to an “Alive” church everyone once in awhile for renewal.
There are plenty of members of the cofC in other churches periodically for a “liturgy fix.” Also, around Christmas and Easter, I know lots are in other churches on the holidays, so many so that in some places, the cofC has started having Christmas Eve and Good Friday services.
Doug,
When an innocuous question is asked, all in the spirit of humor, and it get’s made the centerpiece of two different negative toned responses, and you’re accused of being “jealous” or at least mean spirited or insincere by implication, then one might take that as an attack. Obviously, in my lame attempt at humor, something didn’t translate the way I intended. Even though you were not being attacked, you felt something sharp in my post to you(even though unintended) and you winced, and started your reply with a rebuttal of sorts,though admittedly, kinder than Glenn’s. It’s apparent to me that it’s quite easy to provoke and to be provoked on here, without even trying. May we all learn a lesson. Peace.
Monty,
what makes a response kind?
Is it not the faithfulness of it? – the true-to-the -word-of-God quality of it? Or is it rather the softness of the words and gentle beauty of the tones?
I see the former … While you seem to see the latter.
If I must choose between faithful words and soft words, I choose the faithful words.
BTW, how was Jesus speaking when He told the sons of thunder what their mom had asked for, exposing their ambitions. Was that kind? It certainly was true and faithful.
And what about calling Peter blessed of God one minute and then verbally shoving him out of the way by calling him Satan?? Was that kind? Or would it have been better said in soft tones?
Really asking,
Grizz
Oka Monty, we are all good? I would just point out that I spent one sentence on IM and the whole rest of my post trying to respond to your questions. So….
Glenn,
I’ve already said too much. No point belaboring it any longer, as I stated there was nothing in my post that was malicious or anything that I needed reprimanding about. Maybe you feel other wise. As for me, I’m moving on, and I hope you will too.
Doug,
We are all good. You’re right, you only made a one sentence comeback, and I got it. A rebuttal of sorts to a joke I made. You didn’t perceive it that way. It was my fault, I don’t know you, nor you me, and I shouldn’t have tried it. Live and learn. Like I said previously, I know better than to demean someone and then try to have a serious dialogue with them. A lesson for all involved, IMO.
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Peace, Monty.
G