Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala

Author:Jim Cymbala
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 1997-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

The Lure of Marketing

HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT whenever you ask a fellow Christian these days about his or her church, the subject invariably goes to attendance?

Question: “Tell me about your church. How is the Lord’s work coming along there?”

Answer: “Well, we have about three hundred on Sunday, I’d say.”

When I ask fellow pastors the same question, I get the same answer—plus two others: “Membership is at five-fifty, we’ve just finished a new education wing, and our gross income this year will top out at about four hundred thousand.”

Attendance, buildings, and cash. A-B-C: The new holy trinity.

HOW BIG WAS ANTIOCH?

SUCH A THING WOULD never have happened in Peter and Paul’s day. For one thing, they had no buildings to call their own. They met in people’s homes, in public courtyards, sometimes even in caves. As for budget, they seemed to have dispensed most of their funds in helping the poor.

Headcounts hardly appear after the Day of Pentecost. We notice a couple of large numbers in Acts 2:41 and 4:4. Later on, Acts 19:7 says “about twelve men” in Ephesus were filled with the Holy Spirit under Paul’s ministry. Beyond that, we know nothing. In 1 Corinthians 1:14–16, Paul can’t even remember whom he baptized, let alone the total count.

How large was the attendance in the Antioch church? Berea? Philippi? Rome? We have no idea.

How large was the congregation at Philadelphia, one of the seven churches addressed in the book of Revelation? Apparently, not very big. The Lord says, “I know that you have little strength.” Yet he proceeds to give them a glowing review (Rev. 3:7–13).

By contrast, how large was the congregation at Laodicea? One can get a hint from the fact that the church was “rich and in need of nothing.” For all we know, it may have drawn 7,000 on a Sunday. Their bills were certainly paid—yet they received a scathing spiritual rebuke.

Nowhere in the epistles do we find Paul saying, “I hear your attendance was down last quarter—what’s the problem? What are you going to do about it?”

This leads me to say that no church, including the one I pastor, should be measured by its attendance. Although I am thankful for the crowds of people who come to the Brooklyn Tabernacle every week, that is not the sign of God’s grace.

BEYOND POPULARITY

THEN WHAT KIND OF spiritual things do matter in a book-of-Acts church? The apostles’ prayer in Acts 4 provides our next benchmark: “Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (v.29). What the disciples wanted was not numbers but an essential quality that would keep them being the church God intended.

Boldness can only be imparted by the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as “taught boldness.” You cannot get it through a seminar. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

New Testament preachers were boldly confrontational, trusting that the Holy Spirit would produce the conviction necessary for conversion. They were not afraid.

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