Follow the Bible reading plan in the FBC Loganville App or at www.fbcloganville.org/bible

Do you believe that God wants to grow the church? 

Do you believe that God has a plan for the local and global church?

Do you believe that God’s plan for the church involves your obedience?

From the foundation of the church Christians were supposed to be the church, not simply attend the church. 

But over the years we have fallen into some toxic patterns of selfishness that have focused our attention on the benefits we gain from church without living as a witness for Jesus in our community. 

We have made the strategy about bringing people into the church, not sending people out of the church. 

The church has provided a list of amenities for you just like a hotel instead of a pathway for discipleship and evangelism. 

When you provide amenities, what you provide changes with what people want. 

“If the church had better _____ I would be able to bring people here.” 

I hate when people say “I go there because I like the music, preaching, children ministry, etc”

My hope is that they experience and witness the love, power, and grace of Jesus at work in our local church and they are drawn to Jesus not what we provide. 

When the goal is to grow a local church congregation the aim is to bring people in and you might not make disciples because you are building programs instead of building disciples.

When the goal is to make disciples we grow the church people and send them out the church definitely makes disciples and grows both spiritually and numerically. 

In Acts 1:8 Jesus gave the disciples one last command before he ascended into Heaven. 

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

The Holy Spirit is the source of power and the strategy is for Christians to be a witness for Jesus around the world.  

Acts 1:8 clearly lays out the outline of the book of Acts and what the church is to be doing until Jesus returns. 

He is not mentioning an optional ministry activity for individuals with cross cultural interests and churches with surplus funds. The Great Commission is the primary task the Lord left his church. 

What was he talking about when Jesus used the word “WITNESS”?

Witness – A person who shares his/her experience and personal knowledge about an event. 

When people in the first century killed these witnesses the word became synonymous with someone who laid down their life because of their religious beliefs. 

Witness in GK is Martyr

To be a witness (martys) is to speak from personal knowledge of facts and their significance. The apostles, as eyewitnesses of the saving events, were witnesses in a unique sense. But all those who will believe and appropriate the truth of their testimony also qualify as witnesses.

Acts 1:8 is a call for Christians to stop attending church and begin being the church on more than just Sunday mornings.

To be Jesus’ witnesses in both word and deed means communicating the verbal content of the Gospel and living God’s way and not our own. 

The Best Way To Grow A Church

As a Christian you ARE a witness. 

The question isn’t if you are a witness – if you are a Christians you are a witness. 

The question is – are you are an effective witness that shows Jesus as immeasurably better than anything this world has to offer? 

• Do you show that Jesus is all-glorious or do you show that other things in the world are more important? 
• Do you help others understand how to live out one’s faith or do you live hypocritically?
• Do you build your life on the rock of biblical truth or is your foundation crumbling?
• Would your co-workers think it is weird that you are a Christian by your words and actions? 

Jesus told the disciples to start evangelizing where they are, in Jerusalem the center of the Jewish people. To their families and friends.

Then they are to move out into all Judea, the Jewish countryside, Samaria, populated by half-Jews; racial boundaries and finally, in fact, to go to the ends of the earth, that is, to reach Gentile peoples. 

The strategy for church growth, multiplication, evangelism, discipleship, and missions is simple: 

• Every Christian, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, should be a witness for Jesus. 

Do you want to know the secret of how the early church grew? 

The church grows when Christians go out into the community and do ministry. 

If you aren’t a witness for Jesus, people around you will not witness Jesus. 

Apply:

How can you be a witness for Jesus?

• It begins with your spiritual life. 
• You can’t make Jesus known if you don’t know Jesus
• Daily time to spend time in the Spirit with Jesus
• It is modeled through your daily life. 
• How you act must line up with what you believe. 
• Share your story about what Jesus has done in your life.  
• Invite someone into repentance and to accept Jesus. 
• Barna study – 65% of millennials believe being a witness for Jesus is important. But 47% of professing millennial Christians believe that it is wrong for an individual to evangelize and “share about one’s personal beliefs with someone who has different beliefs. 

Respond:

Pray for opportunities and boldness to share your faith today. 

Want to receive devotions to your email inbox Monday-Friday? Join today and receive devotions each morning. Subscribe to the email list.

The F260 NT Bible reading plan and HEAR Journal method is from Replicate Ministries.