BUILDING THE CHURCH THROUGH PRAYER: Part 3

The book of Acts is a story about the power of the Holy Spirit advancing God’s word through the Church into cities and nations. Prayer was the key to the release of the Holy Spirit empowered Church to make effective the gospel of Christ.

Both biblically and historically prayer brings advancement of God’s cause.

Prayer meetings launched a worldwide missionary movement. In Acts 13:1-3, while in a prayer meeting, the church experienced the Holy Spirit calling Barnabas and Paul to plant churches in the nations. The first recorded launch of the gospel in Europe came from the prayer meeting in Acts 16:12-15. Paul was part of a riverside prayer meeting in Philippi. At that prayer meeting, Lydia’s heart was opened to receive Christ.

Prayer has been as a powerful force throughout church history:

• Jeremiah Lamphier called a prayer meeting in downtown New York in 1857. Within six months, 10,000 businessmen were praying for revival. Within two years, two million people were saved and added to the churches.

• James McQuilkin and three others met in a schoolhouse in Ireland every Friday evening for prayer. By the end of the year 1858, fifty believers had come to pray and they prayed for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The next year, an estimated 100,000 were saved and added to the churches in Ulster.

Corporate, prevailing, intense prayer always preceded every move of God. People began crying out to God in a way they had not previously experienced. May we also fervently and continually pray for God to move as we look at all that awaits us in the year ahead.

BUILDING THE CHURCH THROUGH PRAYER: Part 2

We are considering how God has chosen to build His church through prayer. We need to first answer the basic question: “What is prayer?” Let me provide some key principles to define prayer more clearly.

• Prayer must never be an afterthought. It should never be given mere “lip service.”
• Prayer is communication with God and is foundational to the believer’s relationship with him.
• Prayer is the strategy for receiving a God-given vision and for developing a Spirit-driven strategy. God is not obligated to bless man’s plans—especially if He was not consulted in creating them. However, He loves to bless His people when they are obedient to the plans He has given them.
• Prayer is an expression of dependence and an acknowledgment of who is really God in our lives.
• Prayer is a demonstration of faith in a God who does the impossible.

Let’s not be content with what we can build with our own strength. Let’s not just have a church that prays but let’s become a praying church. Do we desire to see the gospel impact our communities and God move in our churches? Let’s pray.

BUILDING THE CHURCH THROUGH PRAYER: Part 1

Years ago a pastor from England named Charles Spurgeon saw his church grow from a handful of people to over 6,000. He noted something important in this experience. He stated: “the prayer meeting ought to be very precious to us, and to be cherished very much by us as a Church, for to it we owe everything. When our little chapel was all but empty; was it not a well-known fact that the prayer meeting was always full? And when the Church increased, and the place was not large enough, it was the prayer meeting that did it all."

Nowhere does the value of the church praying emerge more clearly than in the book of Acts with the ministry of the early church. Acts demonstrates a church that works. The book of Acts is more than a history of the early church. It is the chronology of the prayer-based activity of the first multiplying church network.

It’s important to see the ways God built the early church through prayer. When reading Acts, prayer constantly appears on the scene as the mission unfolds. Note how prayer is a part of these occasions:

1. The church is born in an extended prayer meeting (“devoting themselves to prayer” Acts 1:13,14)
2. Prayer is a part of choosing leadership. (“And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one” Acts 1:24-25).
3. Prayer results from the Spirit’s empowering. As the Holy Spirit fills believers, they immediately gather in homes to pray (“and they devoted themselves…to prayer” Acts 2:4, 42-47).
4. On the way to prayer, a man is healed and revival breaks out (Acts 3:1-10).
5. An external crisis drives the church to prayer (Acts 4:27-31).
6. An internal conflict leads the apostles to prioritize their time of prayer together (Acts 6:1-6).
7. Prayer is prominent as persecution begins and Christians are scattered (Acts 8:1-2).
8. Prayer is vital to bringing the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 11:14-18).
9. Prayer is instrumental in Peter’s escape from prison (Acts 12:1-9).
10. Prayer gives birth to the first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-3).
11. Prayer is instrumental in Paul’s second missionary journey (Acts 16:6-10).

With these examples in mind, let’s make prayer a primary activity in our life together. We must build our lives and our churches with a rich and fervent prayer life.

A MISSION-FOCUSED REPRODUCING CHURCH: Part 6

This is the final post in our examination of what it means to be a Mission-Focused Reproducing Church. Today we look at the concluding reasons why Newfrontiers is committed to aggressively planting mission-focused reproducing churches.

5. Planting mission-focused reproducing churches keeps us open-handed.

Church planting is a purposeful upstream swim against the current of institutionalism. As we plant churches that have mission within the very center of their DNA, these churches will reflect the generosity and openness of Jesus in a culture that is wary of institutionalism.

6. It keeps us fresh

By constantly sending people out, we allow for new people to take their “seats” and new leaders to emerge. Churches don’t institutionalize because they have grown to a certain size over a long period of time. Institutionalization occurs because they fail to look outside their own walls.

7. It keeps us focused

By repeatedly participating in the birthing process of new churches, we are constantly reminded of our own mission and vision and why we seek to plant mission-focused reproducing churches in the first place.

Planting churches is much more than self-preservation. Included in the church planting process is biblical teaching, evangelism, discipling and worship!

8. It keeps us dependent

It’s hard to let good leaders go. It’s hard to let money go. Birthing new churches helps us to trust God as our constant Provider. We must be willing to risk significant sums of money, members, and leaders. We will miss those whom we send, but we will rejoice in the many people the kingdom of God will gain.

Jesus has called us to “march off of the map.” Like the Church in Acts we are a reproducing church movement.

Each Church must own this vision, it’s not enough for this vision to just be the property of apostolic leaders. Being a reproducing church is what you are, not just what you do.

If you have connected to our apostolic team then you have joined a vision. You are a part of this world-changing vision through your participation, financial giving, serving, witness, availability and care for one another. Let’s strengthen our commitment to the mission the Lord Jesus has called us to by planting mission-focused reproducing churches everywhere we go.

A MISSION-FOCUSED REPRODUCING CHURCH: Part 5

The final thing we will examine in this post and the next will be the “why” of church planting. There are definite reasons Newfrontiers is committed to aggressively planting mission-focused reproducing churches. I’ll share some of these reasons with you now and some in my final post next week.

1. New churches reach more people.

Christian Schwarz of Natural Church Development surveyed over 1,000 churches and discovered that smaller churches were 16 times more effective in winning new converts to Jesus than mega-churches. Having more entry points into the Kingdom of God increases the possibility of people coming to faith in Christ.

Ron Gladden poses the question, “If your city had only one restaurant, would more people eat out?” The obvious is that the more restaurants increase the possibilities of more people eating out. The more churches the greater potential for reaching more people with the gospel.

2. New churches reach new people.

New churches reach new generations, new residents and new people groups. New churches attract new groups about 6-10 times better and faster than older churches do. In a new church, younger and newer people can get into its leadership faster. New churches have a goal to reach new people and aren’t hindered by attempting to satisfy the desires of long-time members.

70% of people in the USA have no meaningful church relationship. The harvest is great and many new people will not be reached without new churches. Jesus said “open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (John 4:35)

The harvest is not only plentiful but it is also diverse. Around our building it is estimated that 70 different languages are spoken. Walk our streets and tour the world. One church can’t reach everyone so it will take all kinds of churches. The diversity of harvest requires a diversity of churches to make disciples of all people groups.

3. New churches release new leaders.

Starting new churches provides an opportunity to raise more workers for the harvest. A reproducing church will reach the harvest by developing, and releasing new leaders for church planting.

4. New, healthy churches grow and reproduce.

Hardly anything demonstrates the health of a congregation as much as the willingness and ability to give birth to new churches. Reproduction is a basic principle of life for all organisms. Churches are not designed by God to be unfruitful; they are designed to grow and reproduce other churches. As churches multiply, the potential harvest increases proportionately.

A MISSION-FOCUSED REPRODUCING CHURCH: Part 4

In Acts 14:21-26 we see two phases of Paul’s ministry. The initial phase is what we’ll refer to as Christian Formation. In this phase Paul preached the Gospel and people were brought into the Kingdom of God. Paul used a variety of means and venues to accomplish Christian Formation. He often preached/taught in synagogues, homes, in the market places, rented halls and occasionally one-on-one. A mission-focused reproducing church needs to be aware of the resources that are available for communicating the Gospel. Though this aspect of Christian Formation is constantly changing with the culture the goal remains the same.

It’s significant to note that Paul went back to places he previously visited in order to strengthen converts and to encourage them. The lesson for us is that over time people always need encouragement and a fresh sense of vision. There are too many things to distract and drain us from the overall objective of taking the Gospel to the nations. Therefore, those we lead will always be in need of encouragement and fresh direction.

The second phase of Paul’s ministry is that of Church Formation. Believers were first congregated together, allowing for the expression of their new found faith in Jesus. Community is always the New Testament context for the expression of belief. Relationships are a necessary ingredient of a believer’s faith being worked out both internally and externally. Relationships are not the flip side of being missional. A church that is truly missional must also be relational in order to provide a context for people to engage in mission.

Secondly, leaders were appointed within the churches. Before leaving a city Paul and Barnabas would appoint elders to lead the fledgling church plant (Acts 14:23). For a church to be a multiplying, reproducing church, gifted leadership is essential. Current leaders must consistently be on the lookout for new, emerging leaders who can be given the responsibility to lead. Christian Formation creates the need for Church Formation, which gives rise to Christian Formation, which creates the need for more Church Formation. In the end you have a dynamic local church that is fully engaged in mission, reproducing itself over and over again.

A MISSION-FOCUSED REPRODUCING CHURCH: Part 3

One of true characteristics of the Church in the book of Acts is its forward movement. As a result of the persecution in Jerusalem, the Church scattered throughout the adjoining regions and nations. Areas that may not have been reached with the Gospel for some time were suddenly transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the leading of the Holy Spirit cultural barriers were crossed and traditional ways of doing things gave way to life-giving transformation.

The New Testament confirms for us that the Church is to always be moving forward with the Gospel, never allowing the complacency of a maintenance perspective to hinder it. Belief in the power of the Gospel is demonstrated through the forward movement of those who hold to such belief.

Not only was the Gospel moving forward in ways that early believers could scarcely imagine, newly formed local congregations were birthed with a mission-focused DNA. Early on the church in Antioch began sending key leaders out to plant churches into other regions. The new church in Ephesus eventually reproduced itself in the cities of Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Paul commends even the church in Thessalonica for reproducing itself into surrounding areas.

It’s clear that early on the New Testament Church recognized that its purpose for existence was found in the mission given it by Jesus Christ. Going into all the world and making disciples of all nations had become a mode of operation for the early Church.