stephen-on-bible

  3 of 3 Practical Applications for Today's Churches T herefore, what can we learn from the early church model? What changes can we bring in our churches for the spiritual welfare of people? What makes it possible for the church to grow not only in numbers but also in faith? Here are my practical suggestions: 1) I believe, it is good for churches to gather as small communities. There are many advantages in doing so. Here are some of them: gathering in inexpensive places (large house or a medium-sized hall) paying more personal attention to all creating more room for one-another intimacy motivating body ministry or one-another ministry holding believers accountable having fellowship meals doing both evangelism and good follow-up making discipleship possible and effective expending money wisely preventing leaders from burn-out building churches as a family community rather than like a formal company with CEO and officials Can you see micro-churches are mo...

    2 of 3 Early Church Model C onsidering the ineffective issues and practical problems we observe in the mega church setting, if I am asked which is an effective model, I would simply point out to the early church. No doubt the early church grew in numbers, perhaps much more growth than what we witness today, if not in steady numbers (for we have more population than the first century), at least in rapid growth. But there are two things to consider: First, the growth of the early church in numbers should not be understood in light of our modern day mega church growth. When church growth is mentioned, it is in relation to the overall growth of the church in a city or town or region. For example, when in Acts 9:31 it is mentioned that the church grew in numbers, it grew in Judea, Galilee and Samaria.   This church growth is not about an individual church growing in a particular locality, eventually becoming a great crowd or a mega church. Indeed, th...

     1 of 3 N ot long back I had a shocking experience. I was speaking to a woman who was sharing with me about attending a mega church in my city. She is attending this church for many years and finds it exciting to be a part of its service. And then she shared with me that there is also a bible study being conducted every week in her house by another group. Do you know who they are? Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I was shocked to hear this. I asked her whether she knows who Jehovah’s Witnesses are. She has no idea about them. This woman is attending an evangelical mega church since many years, yet she didn’t know that JW is a cult in which many sincere people are entangled by its false teachings. The members of JW have penetrated her house to digress this family from some of the cardinal truths of the Holy Bible. When I explained to her who JW's are, she was taken aback. Now this woman is passionate for God and sincerely loves to follow Christ. But s...

Last night, I had the privilege of personally listening to mission-centered testimonies shared by a wonderful couple. The interesting thing is, this brother is neither a full-time Christian worker nor a pastor or a preacher, not even a bi-vocational worker leading a church. He, along with his wife, is a simple believer but devoted to God’s mission. This young brother is working in a Muslim populated and prosperous country. He works for an automobile company and is living in this rich nation for a couple of years. Multitudes of people, including Christians, particularly from the Asian countries, leave their hometown and go to this country. Do you know why? To earn wealth, acquire material possessions, buy good property in their hometown and then return back to their native place at their convenient time to settle comfortably with their family. But this brother is quite different. He is not material-centered, earthly-minded and comfort-oriented. His passion is, as he works, h...

One of the fascinating things we remember about our Christian life is our ardent passion for God when we had come to know Christ as our personal Savior and Lord. In retrospect, many of us express how passionate we were during the early stage of our Christian life, how we used to pray and meditate on God’s word and how eager we were to share the gospel with others. But what happened as the years went by? Should we say we have become cold in our heart, lukewarm in our passion to live for God and lazy in disciplining our inner life? Did we become more worldly than godly in our passions and pursuits? Did we begin taking things that matter for eternity "more easily"? There are some, in fact there are many—when they become more familiar with the knowledge about God and with His word, instead of developing more craving for Him and longing to live for His glory, they slide into frivolous attitude toward spiritual disciplines. Can we dare say we do not belong to such group?...