Forward Faith

40 Days of Prayer 

Forward Faith

  
"Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen." 2 Peter 3:18 NIV

So many pastors and church leaders today are striving for church growth, but that is putting the cart before the horse. The objective should not be church growth, but church health, because growth must proceed from health...If a body is healthy, it will grow. And although growth in the church will usually include more people coming, that is not always the case. So we should focus on the health of the church and let God take care of the growth. If you do it the other way around, you may end up with an unhealthy church that has a lot of people - one that may look successful, but is not really pleasing to God." Harry Reeder, From Embers to Flame

Paul stated in Ephesians, "Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.  Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.  Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.  He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love." (Ephesians 4:11-16 NLT)

As a young church plant, how easy it is for us to lose our focus on 'growing in grace' to man-centered concepts of growing in numbers. It feels impossible when you are so small and you are worried about just surviving as a church. Reeder goes on to say that this "hang on and hold on" mentality is deadly to the church as it puts our vision on "keep the doors open rather than bring a harvest of souls through those doors." Continuing forward with a focus on health, personal discipleship and maturity that surrenders growth to God, takes a great act of faith on our part. Our natural inclination is to turn to the latest program or strategy. The preaching and teaching of the gospel and the surrender and submission of prayer working hand in hand are our greatest weapons in building the church that glorifies God.

This 40 days of prayer is part of that growing in grace as His new church body here in Crestview. As we spend time each day reading God's word and focusing on prayer for the future of Grace Redeemer, God is building our faith to trust Him with the growth of our church. Will we be approved at the city council meeting on November 12th? Probably. Should we prayerfully continue to move forward with our plans for the building? Absolutely! We should always seek the Lord to move and work and guide our steps. But most importantly,our prayer is that the Lord will continue to grow our faith into an ever deeper conviction in His grace as He leads. May our faith in His presence and leading continue to keep our vision on His glory alone despite the obstacles we have to overcome.