How Does Your Church Grow?

How is your church going, or rather, growing?

Human growth and development can be a metaphor for so many things. The formation of an embryo is not unlike church growth.  It starts out with a few cells.  Those cells begin to differentiate and form organs with different functions – the heart, the brain, the liver, the muscles, etc.  The skeleton begins to form, the neural tube “zips up,” and then we have a structure that can hold the baby up. 

The same can be said of the church.  A church may begin with a handful of people with a dream to reach a community for Christ and minister to each other.  As  the fellowship grows, it needs a structure – a structure of deacons and elders as the New Testament prescribes.  As those with different gifts come into the fellowship, the church puts those in place to fulfill different areas of ministry.  We need the “heart” of Children’s ministry, the “brain” of teaching ministry, the “muscle” to go out into the community with the gospel, and on and on the examples could go. 

We don’t all have the same gifts or the same function, but we are all members of one body.  (1 Corinthians 12:4-5, Romans 12:4-5). 

Where do you fit into the Body?  What is your function within it?
Are you in a church that will help you find out if you don’t know?

All those who are a part of the Body of Christ have a gift, and a role to play (1 Cor.  12).