I almost never do this, but I thought I’d post something that is really more of an internal University Reformed Church matter.
Our church is about to launch a capital campaign. We don’t know exactly what we need to do, but we know we need to do something and that something will cost money. So we are launching this campaign at our congregational meeting tomorrow night.
At that meeting we’ll be giving our congregation an 8 page document entitled, “Ready For More.” I wrote the introductory letter. I thought it would be helpful for the people at URC to read this letter before tomorrow’s meeting (hello friends!), and perhaps something in it might be useful for other churches as they think about the how and why of church growth.
And in case you followed the thread from Wednesday’s post, tomorrow I’ll talk about Mere Christianity.
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An Invitation to Strike the Ground and Be Surprised
It was an audacious project. When completed, the new church building would hold more than 5,000 worshipers in a single service. In addition to several balconies and several meeting rooms, the church had a full basement with a lecture hall large enough for 900 adults. Also in the basement was enough space for 1000 children to attend Sunday school. There were, of course, bathrooms, a kitchen, office space, many classrooms and designated areas for special groups and special events. It was a big building and building it was a giant undertaking.
Some complained the plans were too big and the project unnecessary. How could such a bricks and mortar project be launched in the name of “ministry”? A fair question, but the young pastor saw things differently. He had no intention of building the church to be “our nest, and then to be idle.” Instead, he viewed all the money to be raised and the beams to be hoisted as a means for mission. “We must go from strength to strength,” he remarked during the fundraising campaign, “and be a missionary church, and never rest until, not only this neighborhood, but our country, of which it is said that some parts are as dark as India, shall be enlightened with the gospel.” He saw the bricks and mortar not as a distraction from real gospel ministry but as a catalyst for it.
Exceedingly Abundantly More
The building of the new church took several years of planning, fundraising, and construction to complete. The cost was significant, and as often happens, more than the congregation originally imagined. But almost five years after the original idea had been approved the growing church held its first services in the new building. In the church book from that first meeting the pastor penned a humble reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness. At the bottom of the declaration he signed his name, as did the elders, the deacons, and many church members. “We the undersigned members of the church…” the paragraph began. It continued on with a request, repentance, and new resolve:
Given their acknowledged dependence on the Lord, it was fitting that the first service at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, held on Monday morning March 18, 1861, was a prayer service. On Wednesday afternoon Charles Haddon Spurgeon, their young pastor, preached his first sermon in London’s newest church building. On the following Sunday, Spurgeon delivered the first Lord’s Day sermon at the Tabernacle, preaching from 2 Chronicles 5:13-14. Again he emphasized the spiritual work that was to be done in and through their new physical space. He asked that God would send “the fire of his Spirit here, and the minister will be more and more lost in the Master. You will come to think less of the speaker and more of the truth spoken; the individual will be swamped, the words uttered will rise above everything.”
Then Spurgeon dreamt of all that God could accomplish if He would visit “this place” in great power.
The building was not about bigger and better but about blessings and dry bones.
What We Know and What We Want
Let me tell you some things we know. We know that our church is not the Metropolitan Tabernacle (and your pastor is no Charles Spurgeon!). But we know the same God. And we know the same gospel must be proclaimed. I have no illusions of being Spurgeon and no plans for our church to grow from 500 to 5000. But I believe God wants us to have the same desire for the same fire.
We want at URC what God’s people have always wanted. We want God to bless us that we might be a blessing. We long to see sinners saved by God’s free grace. We aim to raise up pastors and missionaries to serve near and far. We want to see dorms and apartments converted. We want the dry bones of students and internationals to live. We want the stony hears of teenagers and children, and of colleagues and neighbors, to be turned to flesh. We want a church where the good news of justification by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone to the glory of God alone is preached boldly and gladly to as many as the Lord brings. We want children nurtured in the word of God. We want to make disciples and teach them to obey all that Christ has commanded. We want to shepherd wisely and faithfully the flock that God has entrusted to us. We want to cultivate a caring, loving communion of saints that use their gifts to build up the body and fan out into the city and on to the campus week after week to promote Christ in word and deed. We want to keep doing the things we do well, and grow in the things we can do better, all to the glory of God, by the power of the Spirit, for the joy of all peoples. We want to help one another know Christ, serve Christ, tell of Christ, and live for Christ.
And we want the space and the seats and the parking to do all this on whatever scale God chooses for us.
Keep Banging
When the prophet Elisha was about to die, King Joash went down to see him one last time. Elisha mustered up enough strength to give a final set of strange instructions. “Take a bow and arrows,” the dying prophet said. “Draw the bow. Open the window eastward and shoot.” So the king shot.
Then Elisha explained that the arrows represented the Lord’s arrows of victory over the Syrians. He told Joash to take the arrows and strike the ground with them. Elisha knew, and Joash probably understood, that each blow to the ground would mean another victory for the Lord and for Israel. Joash only hit the ground three times. Elisha was furious. “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times” (2 Kings 13:19). The king had asked for too little.
It is possible to ask the Lord for wrong things. It is possible we ask the Lord for the wrong reasons. But if we ask with the right heart and toward the right end, we cannot ask for too much.
These are exciting times at URC. The Lord has seen fit to bring new people and new opportunities. None of us knows what the next opportunity will be, but we want to be ready when it comes. That means each one of us must pray for God to do more with us, among us, and through us than we ask or imagine. Let’s strike our arrows on the ground five or six times together. In other words, let’s not be afraid of big numbers, either for the church’s target or for your personal pledge. I’m fully convinced the Lord can enable us to raise more money than we think is possible—if we go after the goal in his way and for his glory. So let’s not ask for too little.
And most importantly, let us move forward in faith so that when God surprises us with his grace we will not look back and be ashamed that we doubted. In the name of God we set up our banner.
