We want the community to obey the gospel and come into the church, but we don’t want the church to compromise truth and become the culture. U.S. church attendance has fallen from over 70% around WWII to less than 47% today. This means that the aging baby boomers (ages 60s through early 80s), who have lived through very challenging societal changes in their decades of life, are the ones filling our pews. How can the church today hope to grow?
I. Acts 11:19-21. Antioch saw changes in the church. Exclusively Jewish in its traditions and knowledge until God opened the door to the gentiles, Jesus’ church was suddenly overwhelmed with believers who had obeyed the gospel but came from a denominational (pagan) and unchurched backgrounds. Today’s faithful don’t fear opening our buildings to our communities without reason. During the turbulent ’60s, divisive ’80s, and combative 2000s, the culture deviated from truth while the church held fast but became unrecognizable to each generation. Sadly, a church that no longer looks like the community it is in soon dies.
II. Acts 15:6-20. Leaders in Jerusalem told the Antioch church to extend the same grace to those from the outside coming in as God had already given to those who had been in the church. It was God’s church, not theirs, and He was restoring His fallen tent. Giving grace means WORK for us as we convert the fallen away, the denominationalists, and the unchurched, who are all products of the current culture we live in. The easier ways of growth closed off to us, the church must return to the method that worked when it last looked like its communities.
III. John 15:16-18. While doing the difficult work of going into our communities and making disciples, we “should not trouble” those escaping the corruption of the world by keeping them from returning to it. We can extend grace and love as Jesus loves without compromising truth. If we do this, His church will be forever changed, yes, but it will thrive into the future.