Measuring Our Growth as a Church

 

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. (Matthew 25:34-36)

 

Dear Friends and Members of IBC,

What would you say are some good indicators that a church is growing? Maybe we might look at how many volunteers we have. Or perhaps we would consider our financial situation. Or possibly the amount of new converts / baptisms / new members we have seen over the last year. In the last decades, church leaders have often used these metrics to measure how well their churches are doing, and to a certain extent, they paint a fairly accurate picture of church success.

Yet there is another, less visible fruit, that also tells us how we are doing as a church: how we treat those who are struggling, the weak and vulnerable. 

When Paul writes about the church body in 1 Corinthians 12:23-24, he shares that God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it. And in the verses above, Jesus tells his disciples that whatever we do for the least, for the hungry, the stranger, the homeless, the sick, the prisoner, we are doing for Him. A modern-day equivalent, humanly speaking, might be the phrase ‘a chain is only as strong as its weakest link’, which also aims at the unity and togetherness of a group.

When we think of a church as a body, then we must consider all of the parts. We can often focus on those with the most visible gifts, the most extrovert or the ones in the forefront, but our success as the body of Christ is measured differently, by whether we also consider the marginalised, the overlooked, the ones in the background.

I encourage us to consider those around us, members of our church, who are in need of being lifted up, who might be struggling. In this regard, let’s keep in mind Paul’s exhortation to the church at Thessalonica in 1 Thess. 5:14: “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all”.  

God bless you
James