As something grows, it gets more complex.
When Kimberly and I first got married, we lived in a 500 square foot apartment. This apartment had exactly 4 doors in it, and two of those doors connected to the bathroom that was the size of a small closet! It was not luxurious, but it was effective for our life at that time: newlyweds in a new town.
Over time, our situation changed. When we moved to Norman in 2001, we moved into a house that had 3 entire bedrooms … AND a living room! Can you believe it? This fit our life in that era, as we hosted dozens of people into our home each week as we were working in the college ministry at Wildwood. Along with this larger house, however, came new responsibilities … mowing the lawn, raking leaves, fixing a roof leak that damaged the walls (no more did we have a landlord to call, it was on us now!) … and many other things. The growth in our life brought exciting opportunities, but additional work and complexities.
Fast forward to today. We now live in a different house (still only 3 bedrooms), but we now have 3 people living in that space, and a dog! This has led us to further complicate life with things that accommodate raising a teenager, caring for an animal, and interacting with many more people now in my role as Senior Pastor. The growth of our family has led to a more complex (and full) life.
We have limits to the complexities we can introduce into our lives. Our family is only so big, our budget is limited, our emotional capacity is finite. We find ourselves now asking questions like, “do we really want to plant that bush? It would look pretty, but someone would then have to take care of it!” Growth is good, but it has its limits.
I was thinking of this today as I looked at Acts 6:1-7. This passage shows the very first church struggling with the growth it was experiencing. Jesus said, “I will build My church …” and build it He did, starting in Jerusalem. Within about a year, the church in Jerusalem had grown from just over 100 people to around 10,000 people (or more!) That kind of growth meant the experience of the church had become more complex. In fact, balls were getting dropped. The first church was not perfect. Care was unevenly distributed among the people: not because the apostles didn’t care for all, but because they simply could not keep up with it all!
So, when the first church had this problem brought to their attention, what did they do? Did they say, “we need to quit growing, it is too chaotic here?” Did they say, “until we get everything perfect, we need to stop sharing our faith and making room for others?” Did they say, “we are not going to plant any more spiritual seeds because someone will have to care for what grows in response?”
Nope. That’s not what they said.
Instead they recognized something. The growing width of the church actually set them up for continued depth of the church, as long as the apostles didn’t try to do it all themselves. Jesus has built His church to scale, by equipping ALL believers with gifts to serve. So as the church grows wider, it is increasingly filled with more gifted ministers!
A growing church is increasingly complex. I have seen that first hand here at Wildwood Community Church. But Jesus has a plan for that complexity, and it involves equipping and commissioning into service the Body of Christ.
This Sunday at Wildwood in our 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00 service, we will look at Acts 6:1-7 in part 5 of our “Deep + Wide” sermon series. Hope you make plans to join us this week as we look at this exciting passage of Scripture together and ponder its significance for the church. See you Sunday … and bring friends!
