Church Growth Tactic: Join the Grave-Digging Team?

What should the atmosphere of the church be like?  Many churches today want you to know what their atmosphere is like.  Their websites tell you what you can expect when you arrive.  This is understandable and helpful.  However, many churches are quick to let you know that they are casual and easy-going.  And often times this is only half the truth.  The reality is they are fun-filled, easy-breezy, places of lightness and levity.  The music is catchy, the sermons are filled with jokes and stories, and the dress looks like a backyard picnic. 

Why is it like this?  There is one grand reason; to draw the average man.  The mindset is that any hint of weightiness or seriousness will be off-putting.  Seriousness will be an obstacle to get people in the door, and it will make it even harder to keep them coming.  People need to be comfortable and nothing makes people more comfortable than chortling through the sermon as they nurse a non-dairy latte.

The only problem with this is it is against much of what we read in the Bible. 

Before I prove this to you, let me ask you a question.  How many jokes do you think it would take to keep people in the pews while certain attenders are struck dead in the service?  How many options at the coffee bar would be enough for people to not grow overly concerned that, though the calories are listed for you, instant death is still a possibility at church?  Would anyone notice that along with the greeter team, there is also a pall-bearer team to carry out dead bodies and dig graves?  I mean, a grave-digging team is another way to get involved in the community of the church, right? It’s where you can get your hands literally dirty in ministry.  My guess is that if you think a few laughs are essential for an effective church program, then you would probably be willing to say a few deaths would empty a church faster than one Sunday with only hymns.  

While all the above sounds facetious, and it partially is, the sentiment is rooted in an actual event in the book of Acts that is given to teach us about what life in the church is to be, and how to think about the world’s perceptions of the church gathered. 

The account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-16 details how this husband and wife duo sold land, but instead of giving what they wanted to give, they lied and said they gave the full amount.  When confronted separately, they each individually lied about it, dropped dead and were carried out and buried.  And each occasion is followed with this word, “and great fear came over all who heard these things.”

So already we are seeing that the church has been sobered.  Now don’t forget that the gospel is still true, Jesus’ command to rejoice is still upon them (Luke 10:20) and Paul’s (yet future) command to “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Phil. 4:4) will be upon them in a few years’ time.  So seriousness is not in exclusion to rejoicing.  It defines what kind of rejoicing we are talking about.  This is a weighty joy.  This is not the joy of stuffing your mouth with cotton candy. It is the kind of joy of you find in delivery rooms where babies are born and bank rooms where mortgages are signed.  It is the joy that recognizes a wonderfully good thing is happening, but it is complex.  Battles are coming and deep sacrifices will be demanded.  Sure, you might have a bit of candy as you wait for your wife to deliver, and it will still be sweet in your mouth.  But you won’t remember it in two days.  It won’t be in the stories you tell your grandchild and it won’t even be factored into the joy of that day. 

I am not saying that a joke has no place in the gathering of the people of God.  But, like the bite of candy in the delivery room, it in no way defines what should be happening during a worship service.  When God’s people gather, the weighty joy of glorious truth, true worship, and gospel freedom should be paired with the seriousness of battle, the call for sacrifice, and the warnings of peril.  This is a serious joy, a weighty rejoicing, and a confident girding oneself for battle.  A joke or two won’t even be remembered, but the powerful purifying presence of God will be forever. 

What does all of this mean when it comes to church growth?  This same account shows us what is happening in that regard.  While verse 12 says that God’s people were “in one accord”, verse 13 says, "But none of the rest of them dared to associate with them.”

Well, there’s the end of the church, don’t you think?  No evangelism is going to happen if they don’t want to even associate with you.  No new blood will even enter those doors as long as all of this seriousness is felt and seen in the people already there.  Bring back the fun.  Do some give-a-ways.  All you need is a trunk-or-treat.  Show the people that that this church is full of people just like everyone else.  Don’t worry about a thing.  Come, relax and don’t forget the latte.   

And guess what is going to happen.  People will come.  You have given the world what it wants and they will come for a while.  At what cost, though?  Let’s not think about it.  Look at all these people!  We have money to do things now!  Or as one church said, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” (Rev. 3:14-22)

Yet that above mentioned church is the church of Laodicea.   They were actually wretched, miserable, blind, poor, and naked according to Jesus. (v.17)  They sold the presence of God for the security of their money and status.  The modern church has in like manner sold the presence of God for the rags of fun, casualness, and approval. 

What happens when God is truly present when the saints gathers?  What happens when holiness is real and sin is confronted?  What happens is that people sit up and recognize real power, real change, and real truth. 

We see this reality immediately follow on the heels of the reality of a fear-filled church.  All though many would not associate with the church, they “held them in high esteem.”  People saw what was absent everywhere else.  The same is true today.  You can’t simultaneously be goofy and serious.  If you want holy power, then don’t make God into a dog and pony show. 

Here is where it becomes almost counter-intuitive. The people did not only hold them in high-esteem, verse 14 says “And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number…”  So which is it?  Were the people not associating with them, or were the people constantly being added?  It was both.  Those who did not want a holy God were not going to associate with a gathering where holiness got people killed.  But those who saw their sinful need, those who knew they needed a Savior, those who saw the bankruptcy of the world and the unrelenting law of diminishing returns, those people saw in the church of Jesus Christ what they were created for.  They saw a true and living God dwelling among a people… and they came. 

The church held no interest for the fun-seekers and entertainment-junkies.  But for those who wanted life eternal, they found a home of true joy and rejoicing that the entertainment world can only simulate with a laugh-track.