One thing I notice as I read the New Testament is that none of the writers seem to be addicted to growth. You do not read about the apostles fretting over growth and wondering how they could replicate the day of Pentecost results again and again. They were wrestling with what to do with the results that God had given them and how to care for the people who had been added unto the early church.
We, on the other hand, seem to be addicted to growth. We thrive when we are growing in numbers. And we become stressed when those numbers are not explosively growing like our early days. We love the excitement of the early days of revival, and we seem to not know what to do when we are not growing. Growth is our answer to all of the local church's problems. Nothing we are facing would matter if 50 new converts appeared.
Nothing grows forever. Even ancient trees stop growing and just get old at some point. Scientists make it their life's work to study things that used to be alive and growing and that died out a long time ago.
The only thing that we hate when it gets bigger is our weight. We work hard to not get bigger around the middle!
Instead of being addicted to growth, maybe we ought to follow the Biblical mandate and work on being addicted to the ministry of the saints. (1Cor. 16:15).
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