Why you should give your church away
A sower went out to sow. But first he needed some seeds.
So he went to Home Depot and bought a bag of seeds. When he opened the bag, he saw that they were very nice seeds. So he wanted some more.
Checking on Google Maps, he found a Garden Center on the outskirts of the city. So he drove there and bought several more bags of seeds. Soon he had a whole wheelbarrow full of seeds. But it wasn’t enough – he wanted more.
He asked ChatGTP where he could purchase large volumes of high-quality seeds at wholesale prices. ChatGPT happily recommended some agri-suppliers in his county, and soon his whole barn was full of seeds.
He continued building up his store of seeds in this manner until harvest time came. But he had no harvest that year, because he had been hoarding seeds instead of planting them!
Hear what I’m sayin’?
A good example of how this parable applies to the church is housegroups. Many pastors see housegroups as having a supportive role for their Sunday services. They reason that by getting visitors involved in housegroups (small weekday evening fellowship gatherings in people’s homes) they will feel “connected” and will be more likely to become full members of the congregation. And by centering housegroup activity on discussion of the previous Sunday’s sermon, pastors try to utilize their housegroups to reinforce their preaching and teaching.
But they’ve got it backwards! As we explain in our book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships, it’s in home fellowships, not in Sunday morning services, where church really happens. Home fellowships are the perfect training ground for believers to learn how to worship, minister, serve, help, love, forgive, move in spiritual gifts, reach out to others, walk in holiness, and more. And they’re also the place where new leadership can arise and be nurtured in ministry areas like teaching, healing, evangelism, the prophetic, pastoral care and helping the poor.
In other words, home fellowships are the seeds from which new churches can be planted. And by giving your church’s home fellowships the freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit and then letting them go when the Spirit imparts vision and authority to their leaders, you’re going to end up reaping a big harvest at the close of the age.
So if you’re a pastor and you’re using your home fellowships to try and make your church grow, you’re doing it wrong. Yes, your church probably will grow if you do it this way, but the goal isn’t to make your church grow, is it? The goal is to make the church — God’s church — grow.
So give your church away so that God’s church can grow. If you do that, you’ll be rewarded (Luke 6:38).
Cheers,
Mitch
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