If our churches employ these five biblical pillars in a common sense way, I believe the potential for growth is unlimited. These five will meet the need of anyone who comes to your church, even if they don't particularly like you personally.
I know, we preachers don't appreciate it, but I think Brother Dave Duell was right at the conference when he mentioned the 25-percent-rule. That rule says:
25 percent of your crowd like you and will always like you, no matter what you say or do.
The next 25 percent will like you until they come to know you better.
The next 25 percent would like you, if they would know you better.
And the last 25 percent don't like you and never will, even if you'd turn into Peter, James or John overnight. Cherish the thought.
The five pillars of the church are the five congregational activities found in Acts chapter 2, the chapter on the birth of the church.
Early in the chapter we see how pentecostal fire falls upon 120 hungry hearts in the Upper Room. It had been a pretty pitiful group up till now. No more. For most of chapter 2 the first pentecostal power preacher - Peter - spits cotton and evangelizes.
Evangelism in all it's forms and shades is the first and foremost pillar of the church. Evangelism is the reason why you and I are still here on earth. Like Rick Warren wrote: there are two things we will no longer be able to do in heaven, and that is: sin and evangelize. God wants us to evangelize.
(There are certain sinners out there nobody can reach quite the way you can.)
3000 men get born again in Peter's first Jerusalem campaign. That's tremendous.
We have to realize, however, that the folks at Jerusalem had been properly primed by God for Peter's message. They were ready.
You see, Jerusalem was overburdened with a gnawing conscience. At the passover feast 50 days ago the whole city had shouted: "Crucify him! Crucify him!", almost lynching Jesus because he refused to become rex iudaea, king of the Jews. When the Lord in pain finally hung on the cross, the glassy eyed mob gloated.
But as with every lynch mob, as soon as the victim was dead, a sense of tremendous shame and gross guilt came over very many of them.
They had murdered an utterly innocent and very noble human being. They had consented to the killing of a divine healer and teacher of precious truths. Never had he violated the least of them.
Now he was dead and they could not reverse the fact.
They had blood on their hands. That blood was crying out. I'm sure they couldn't sleep at night.
So when Peter narrated the pentecostal miracle for them and spoke of the resurrection of Jesus, they exulted and got born again! His message pricked them in their heart. (Verse 37.) And they gladly received his word, (Verse 41), their guilt having been a tremendous motivator.
Don't be naive. Not everywhere on earth are the fields equally white for harvest, as Jesus plainly indicated when he spoke about the different soils in the parable of the sower sowing the word. (Mark 4.) Some places yield 30 percent, some 60, some 100 percent.
There is nothing wrong with going where the crops are.
Why become torpid in your sedate little church of 100, when you could go through divinely opened doors, reach thousands and have a gospel heyday? You'll return to your congregation charged with vim, vigor and vitality.
Africa for instance is ripe, while a new crop is slowly creeping up in Europe. America, as we all know, is God's own country. It defies definition in harvest terms.
I honestly believe that we have a duty to harvest the ripe countries of the world. (Lest a persecution scatter us, like the one that came upon the church in Jerusalem.) If we can't go ourselves, the least we can do is help some harvester by sending finances.
No matter if it is miracle-evangelism like we did in Burundi, Africa, last May, or the over-the-fence witnessing my wife and I do to our sceptical and superstitious Romanian immigrant neighbours. Be it the multitude or the measly few: they all need Jesus more than anything. And we have what they need.
The other four activities in which the proto-church of Jerusalem continued steadfastly according to Acts 2, 42 are:
The teaching of the apostles.
They went into the temple daily to hear the apostles teach.
We still have the teaching of the apostles with us today. As a matter of fact, Jesus specifically appeared to Paul and discussed the gospel with him at great length. Paul wrote down what the Lord entrusted him. Jesus also visited his brother James, who later became the pastor of the Jerusalem church. (Image having a brother of Jesus as your pastor. James probably looked a lot like his eldest sibling to begin with. Can you imagine the stories James was able to tell?) James wrote the letter named after him.
Peter wrote.
John wrote, as did Matthew, Mark, Luke and Jude, yet another brother of Jesus.
The teaching of the apostles is still with us in form of the Holy Writ!
While the Sunday morning crowd can only stand so-and-so-much teaching, - if it's too much, they don't retain any of it -, maybe monthly seminars would be appropriate. For years I have done three-part seminars on the second Saturday afternoon of every month in our church. Called them "Student of the Word"-seminars. Some folks actually came from up to 700 km (430 miles) away many times to sit in on the teachings. They wanted that. It met a need for them.
A bible school is, of course, every teachers dream. Seminars, however, are the next best thing.
Many churches, - especially teaching-heavy churches -, lose people because they fail to meet another Acts 2, 42-need: they don't provide the third pillar. Because their pastor is a very task-oriented and presumably a rather bookish person, personal relationships are not his forte. He cannot provide the family fellowship feeling Christians crave.
Teacher-pastors, face it: There are people out in your congregation who don't care nuth'n about the Word. They don't understand it, and that's just dandy. While you shift to highest concentration in expository teaching they wonder why Louie isn't there today.
They are relationship-oriented.
Relationship-oriented people are very valuable. They may live in perpetual crisis, - due to the lack of stabilizing Word in them -, but with their warm personalities they draw people like honey draws bees. They are very effective evangelists.
People will not like your Christ, if they don't like you first. The man is more than the message.
These relationship-oriented fellowshippy believers flourish in a home-group setting.
Indeed, I see small home-groups as a must for a church eager to provide meaningful fellowship. It's the bible way!
Recommendable literature about cell groups would be Dr. Cho's Successfull Cell Groups, or Larry Stockstill's The Cell Church.
A cell group could be evangelistic by always having an empty chair in it's circle as a reminder to the members to invite a colleague or a neighbour or a friend.
The fourth pillar mentioned in Acts 2, 42 is the breaking of bread.
That would include all kinds of social work or political activities.
You know, it is very hard to call a new church a cult, when it is actually helping some underprivileged somebody. Cults always focus on the self. Their trinity consists of I, me and mine. They're navel-gazers, occupied with "touching their inner child" or some other esoteric hogwash.
Jesus said true happiness comes not by finding yourself, but rather by dying to self. Lose your life and you shall find it, he said. How can you do that better than by "breaking your bread" with a needy person?
We can "break bread" by organizing relief transports into stricken lands ourselves, or we can contribute to outreaches like the late Dr. Lester Sumrall's "Feed the Hungry"-projects. 82-year old Dr. Sumrall visited our church twice in 1995 before he went to be with the Lord. Both times we raised funds for one of his many worthy causes.
The fifth pillar in which the early church continued steadfastly was prayers.
"Prayers" to me includes the whole spectrum of charismatic activities, such as speaking in tongues, interpreting, praying for the sick, prophecying, etc.
Humans crave the supernatural. Let's learn how to move in it. The door is open. You can open it even wider by praying in the spirit.
In most churches there is not too much charismatic gift ministry going on. It is as the spirit wills. However, it is silly to think that the Spirit only wills a general prophecy every now and then, using Brother Blabmouth. We're missing it here.
I believe, if we realize that prophecying is not the foretelling of the future but rather inspired utterance intended to encourage, exhort or comfort (no prediction of the future!), we will become bolder in speaking out.
Also, let's state clearly that the speaker can miss it. The only New Testament prophet we see in action, - Agabus -, missed it on the details! He did get the big picture right, though!
In Acts 21, 11 Agabus prophecies over Paul and says: "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles."
It didn't happen!
According to Acts 22, 31-35 the Jews almost beat Paul to death, but they didn't bind him! Neither did they deliver him to the Romans. The Roman Gentiles took Paul. They bound him with two chains!
So we see: the true blue NT-prophet Agabus had the big picture right, but he erred in the details!
So cut yourself some slack.
Don't overestimate personal prophecies. They are not infallible or on the same level as God's word. In a personal prophecy only the big picture really counts.
The intensity of inspiration can vary considerably from service to service. There are times when such a strong inspiration is present, - even in my home office before driving off to the Sunday service -, I could prophecy over just anybody in a line of people. In the services this inspiration seems to go out all over the crowd and they themselves start to speak out with me just moderating.
At other times in our service there is only some tinny tongue talk and a no frills interpretation.
But we keep operating! I have gotten too many excellent reports of healings and changed lifes to cut back on the gifts. People meet God and get touched in the deepest depths of their hearts through that ministry.
There is so much blessing in "prayers."
These five biblical pillars will enhance every church. They will put floundering ones over and stabilize the sturdy ones further. In a five-pillar-church there is something for everyone. A 5P-church is in a fine position to meet needs.
God's richest and best,
Gert Hoinle, Editor of Teaching News
P.S.: I wrote this in Oklahoma. By now I'm back home in the North Country.
Copyright (c) 1999 and 2001 by Gert Hoinle