Church Growth - Stagnation

[Aquila]

If the church is to grow... it has to be... released. When released, the power will be unleashed.

To many churches aren't growing because an individual or a single family is afraid to release the body. Therefore, it will never grow larger than what they can manage or the circle of intimacy they can create all by themselves.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Rather they be called "house churches", "care groups", "friendship groups", or "home Bible studies", small groups are essential to growth and building more intimate bonds between believers. This helps increase a retention that facilitates.... growth.

Now, in our eyes a "house church" is unique because each elder or head of household where believers gather administers water baptism and the Lord's Supper for the home based group. Also, most Christian discipline takes place at the house church level. Also, in our network, the local house church is an autonomous body that can set certain standards for itself as they search the Scriptures. So, within the network, you might see a wide variety of opinions or Scriptural applications in non-essential matters. The matters that an Apostolic house church network might chose not compromise on, points that define them, could be:

-Oneness of God
-Acts 2:38 salvation
-Priesthood of all believers
-The church being a body of people, not a building or organization
-A financial plan of steward ship (giving or tithing)

Beyond these things, a certain flexibility can be allowed for each house church and they still remain in the network. Yes, there will be some house churches more conservative or liberal on some issues than others. But that allows a variety of options for the seeker to find a spiritual home within the body. The primary vision of maintaining a love for God and others cannot be overemphasized.

How many house churches are in the network you speak of?

[CC1]

Originally Posted by Jito463

The church I grew up in is the oldest Oneness church in Iowa, the weekly Sunday morning service has typically never gone much above 100 (I believe 150 was the peak, but I could be mistaken), albeit the population of the town is only around 8-9,000. However, a great many daughter works have come out of it. People being taught in the church have then gone to other towns and started new works. Church growth isn't just based on the weekly regulars, but also what grows out of it in surrounding communities or even other works in the same city.

You bring up a good point. The small church I grew up in was in a small town that had large Army and Air Force bases nearby. Our church was 80% military folks. My dad was the oldest man in the church when he was 52. My pastor was great and outreach to young folks and brought in scores if not hundreds of young military men into the church who once they rotated out of our town populated churches in other locations and in some instances when on to pastor churches.

My pastor did an amazing job of planting and watering but never got to enjoy the increase. So there are sometimes good reasons a church doesn't see steady growth although I think that is very much the exception and not the rule.

[CC1]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

My experience has been the opposite.
I know of churches who have replaced the "gospel" with social services and "serving".
Then the next step is to water down the doctrine until the next generation sees no difference between us and the rest of the denominations.
I have witnessed that in my own family.

As Amanah said in a reply to your post the two are not mutually exclusive. You can reach out in community service to show the love of Christ without changing your doctrine one single bit.

I think the concept that you just get behind a pulpit and preach sermons twice on Sunday and once mid week and you have done your job as a church and pastor has proven to not work the vast majority of the time no matter how "strong" or "pure" you may feel your doctrine is.

[aegsm76]

Originally Posted by CC1

As Amanah said in a reply to your post the two are not mutually exclusive. You can reach out in community service to show the love of Christ without changing your doctrine one single bit.

I think the concept that you just get behind a pulpit and preach sermons twice on Sunday and once mid week and you have done your job as a church and pastor has proven to not work the vast majority of the time no matter how "strong" or "pure" you may feel your doctrine is.

I agree.
However, I have seen too many examples of what I said to ignore it.
I would also say that our first priority in serving as outlined in scripture is the fatherless, widows and those in prison.
In other words, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

[Amanah]

I guess this is an example of how to do it:

David K. Bernard: Under Pastor Shaw, church has about 1,000 constituents plus almost 1,000 in 22 daughter works & preaching points

http://www.newlifeaustin.com/Who-We-Are

http://www.newlifeaustin.com/Church-Plants

We're in northwest Austin, but we also want to reach all of the Austin metropolitan area. And so we have planted several other churches in the surrounding area. We call these church plants "daughter churches," and our goal is for each of these congregations to become autonomous churches affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International. Once autonomous, we call them "sister churches." We would love for you to visit New Life Austin, but if you're close to one of our daughter or sister churches, we definitely would encourage you to visit them!

Daughter Churches
Kyle: New Life Sanctuary, Pastor David Mullins
Luling: New Life House of Prayer, Pastor Jesus Estrada
Manchaca: Apostolic Life Center, Pastor John Ratka
Manor: Iglesia Nueva Vida, Pastor Fernando Luna
Round Rock: New Life Church, Pastor Steve Green
..
Sister Churches
Austin: Centro Familiar Nueva Vida, Pastor Jesse Romero
Austin: New Life Temple: Pastor Dwayne Shaw
Austin: Nueva Vida de Austin, Pastor Richard Hernandez
Burnet: New Life Fellowhship, Pastor Doug Fowler
Cedar Park: The Sanctuary, Pastor Mel Reddy
Hutto: New Life Church, Pastor Bernhard Suppan
Fredericksburg: Calvary Pentecostal Church, Pastor Don Steadman
Pflugerville: Way of Life Church, Pastor Jason Ouellette
Taylor: New Life Church, Pastor Roy Hutton

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Esaias

How many house churches are in the network you speak of?

I'm not exactly sure. I believe the last I heard they had 78. The link below states that there is about 80. I don't know when it was last updated.

http://www.apexcommunity.org/house-church-faq

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Aquila

I'm not exactly sure. I believe the last I heard they had 78. The link below states that there is about 80. I don't know when it was last updated.

http://www.apexcommunity.org/house-church-faq

"We believe that God is the Creator and Ruler of the Universe.

He has eternally existed in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These three are co-equal and are one God."

From http://www.apexcommunity.org/what-we-believe/

I thought you were a member of an apostolic house church?

[jediwill83]

Don't pray for something God has already done and don't pray for God to do something that He has commanded YOU to do.

We become stagnant because we sit and wait for God to do all the work and we think that our job is just to show up.

I think that as long as there is sickness, disease and people that needs to be delivered, we have plenty to do.

Our job is to do things that no one else can do.THAT is Apostolic Identity and THAT is what will draw others.

[n david]

Originally Posted by Esaias

"We believe that God is the Creator and Ruler of the Universe.

He has eternally existed in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These three are co-equal and are one God."

From http://www.apexcommunity.org/what-we-believe/

I thought you were a member of an apostolic house church?

I don't believe this is Aquila's house church. This looks to be from the example he gave in his post.