Why doesn't it grow?

Here's a question to get you thinking. 'Why doesn't church in the West grow explosively like the church described in the book of Acts?'

The gospels are full of hints and clues in the life of Jesus, and Acts describes the early years of the church in exciting detail. Jesus' followers were reviled and persecuted but determined to press on; they had one another and the presence of the Holy Spirit to sustain them in their constant outward movement.

The church grew from 120 people to 20 million in the first 300 years. Doesn't that fill you with a sense of challenge? Will you rise to it?

Jesus told his disciples, 'Go and make disciples of all nations ... and teach them everything that I have taught you' (Matthew 28:18-20). How many of us actually go? How many make disciples? What was this early, outgoing, discipling church really like?

Discuss – List some of the ways church today and church at the beginning are different. Can you think of other examples of church movements throughout history that exploded from tiny beginnings? How did they do it? Jesus rarely mentions church, but talks about the kingdom a lot – why?

(Extracted from JDMC Version 2 - Download the whole thing from the links on this page.)