Advancing the Church through Change

Thinking back to my younger years and the multiple hours we spent on the school bus, I’m reminded of church ministry. Some of the buses went to populated neighborhoods and picked up large groups of children. In the rural areas, buses zig-zagged all over the countryside to pick up one or two. Neither was wrong… just different. In her beginning, the church was like that big group model. In Acts 2, thousands came to faith in Christ in one place.

The church continued to grow exponentially, and the math went from addition to multiplication in Acts 6. But something else changed in Acts 6. The church was being moved away from the big group model to a zig-zagging kind of ministry.  

In the early days of the church, Bible teaching and assembly were often the catalyst for church growth. But in Acts 6, a new catalyst appeared. The church’s response to a ministry need and the resulting ministry adjustment was what actually prepared the church for the future. And by ministry adjustment, I mean ‘change’.

Yep, change. It's the one thing we try to avoid. Yet, it's the one thing we need for ongoing ministry. I’m thankful that the Jerusalem church changed and adjusted to address the ministry need. God used the changes these people made to advance the church in the following chapters.

It’s interesting that this is recorded immediately after the passages about not changing the message of truth. Truth never changes; ministry always changes. In Acts 6, the church faced ministry challenges they likely didn’t expect and probably didn't want. But like it or not, they were there. So, there would have to be a change… without it, the church would have died.

We can actually follow the progression of these changes.  

·       First, there was evangelism. Let's define that as ‘God's people serving in unity, staying faithful to His Word, and honestly speaking the gospel to sinners’.

·       The next thing that happened was discipleship. Think, ‘People in the church growing in Christ and becoming involved in the effort of evangelism’ as a result of the work of God's Holy Spirit through the study of the Bible and its application.

·      These are naturally followed by ministry, ‘The Biblical response that happens when evangelism and discipleship expose the needs of people in the church’.

The Jerusalem church accomplished this in 3 ways that can be helpful to us as we attempt to advance the church for Christ.

First, in Acts 6:1, we see the recognition of a ministry need. The church was growing with people from different backgrounds. There were two very different groups in this church. The Jerusalem-basedJews were naturally prejudiced toward others and raised to believe that non-Jews weren't as good as they were. And there were the Hellenists who spoke Greek and were raised outside Jerusalem. Some of their widows were left behind with no family structure to help.  

Ministry need isn’t always easily understood. The differences in language, culture, and outlook led to real problems. Today's churches must be aware of differences and the challenges they bring. The Jerusalem natives hadn’t met the needs of the ‘outsiders’.This is not about doctrine, or tradition, or preference. This is about the genuine need that people in the church had. The church family wasn't responding, so it became a priority for the leaders.

Secondly, ministry leaders were recruited based on the need. The church took a step of faith and came up with a group of servants who could facilitate that ministry need. Biblical leadership asks, “Now that we've identified a need, who is gifted to meet it?”  And if there IS no one, they will train them to do it. The church has the answers and the tools to meet the needs within the body of Christ.

Thirdly, the church responded in obedient faith. They chose men gifted to meet the need. They prayed for these servants. And the Word of God spread.

What often hinders the church isn't demographics or lack of people. It's the lack of ministry adjustment. What often advances the church is the willingness to start a new, never-before-heard-of ministry… like choosing Greek-speaking servants to meet church needs.

This paved the way for God to use some of these same men to zig-zag across the land, like those school buses did, picking up small groups and individuals who would become the new generation of disciples - eventually from among the Gentiles. Humanly speaking, had the appointment of the Greek speakers not happened in chapter 6, the ministry to Gentiles in chapters 10 and 11 might not have happened.

Change- that dreaded word- is the foundational truth of Christianity. Sinful people changed by God and given an inheritance with Christ. God saving the estranged and hopeless sinner… the greatest change of all. Change is also the foundational truth for advancing the church. It's not only about picking up groups of people in the neighborhood. Sometimes, it's about choosing, training, and allowing leaders to be zig-zagged by God to reach the outsiders, doing ministry we would have never considered.

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