Growing Pains (Acts 6:1-7) | 3/20/22

Acts 6:1-7 | 3/20/22 | Will DuVal

Disney has been receiving quite a bit of press lately for their newest animated film, “Turning Red”, the coming-of-age story of an adolescent girl named “Mei” struggling through all the panda-monium of puberty. Whatever your feelings about the movie, I’m sure many of us can still remember and relate to those difficult GROWING PAINS. (Shout out to Tony Merida and his commentary, from which I’m stealing my title this morning, which HE of course stole from the classic 80’s sitcom.)

But I’ll never forget showing up to school on the first day of 6th grade, super nervous about the start of middle school – same school for me but on a whole different campus now, with 6th thru 12th graders; low man on the totem pole – so naturally (and frantically), I started looking around for my friends, for safety, and familiarity. When up walks this boy a full 6 inches taller than me, sporting acne and a 5 o’clock shadow, and he says, [*deep voice] “Hey Will: how was your summer?”

I replied, [*high voice] “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

It was Will Woods, one of my good buddies who’d been out of the country most of that summer, apparently long enough to become a full-grown MAN. I kept looking around and began to notice that some of my FEMALE friends had grown too, in exciting new ways, eliciting all sorts of new exciting feelings in me…

Well, you might say that what we observe in Acts ch6 is the early church’s PUBERTY, of sorts. By this point in the book of Acts, the Church, as Brittany Spears so poignantly put it, is “not a girl, [but she’s] not yet a woman”. The Church was birthed in ch2 at Pentecost, but she’s grown up quickly – adversity will FORCE you to, won’t it? And the Church has had her fair share of trials already – from the skepticism they encountered at Pentecost to the arrests they endured in ch4. Both threats within – Christian hypocrisy – and threats from the outside – persecution at the hands of the Jewish religious establishment in ch5. But the ordeal the Church will face this morning in ch6 may be its toughest yet. And puberty seems an apropos analogy, because at its core, the most threatening issue here is FAMILY DISUNITY. That’s one of the worst side effects of adolescence, stereotypically, isn’t it: Strife within the home? Teenage hormonal angst leading to relational conflict both with other siblings – rivalry and cantankerousness – as well as with one’s parents – disgruntled rebelliousness. Well, that’s what we’re going to see out of the Church here in ch6. Because what’s true of middle school maturation (or highschool, for you late bloomers), is true of church development as well: sometimes growing up is TOUGH!

And yet, as we noted in last week’s sermon: healthy things GROW. Growing may be painful, but it’s good. Especially when you have good PARENTS to help you navigate it. And that’s who Acts 6:1-7 focuses on in particular: the Church’s parents, her “spiritual fathers”, the apostles, who recognize that they can no longer KEEP UP with all this church growth; something’s gotta give, something’s gotta CHANGE. Like the youth group parents who throw up their hands and say, “We need HELP!  [*gritted teeth] Raising this little… precious child of God…”

So the apostles appoint NEW leaders within the Church to a NEW role: the office of DEACON. The Church’s elder brothers.

But I get ahead of myself. Would you stand with me… Acts 6:1-7 (only 7 verses):

“Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists[a] arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers,[b] pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”  This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…

We learn 4 important things about church growth in these 7 short verses. And as always – because Acts was written to and about the Church 2,000 years ago, but because it was ALSO written FOR US today –  I want to apply each of these principles to our OWN church here at West Hills.  We’ve been blessed – in spite of COVID, when many churches were closing their doors – we’ve grown by about 70% over the past 3 years now. And that is exciting; God is clearly moving and doing something special at this church. And yet, growth brings with it: problems. Sometimes they’re GOOD problems to have to fix, but they are problemsnevertheless. But the first thing we note about church growth in v1 is that…

#1 – it’s NATURAL. (v1a)

As I already pointed out: “healthy living things GROW.” But it’s even more STRIKING here as ch6 opens, considering the context. The early Church had at least two BIG reasons to try and stifle, suppress their own growth.

The first was persecution. ch5 just concluded with the apostles getting BEATEN half to death and warned never to speak of Jesus again. I bet SOME church-goers pointed out the fact that the BIGGER our community grows, and the more VISIBLE we become to our opponents, the bigger the TARGET grows on our backs. Some of them must have suggested that they shift their evangelism “underground”; keep things on the DL. Maybe take a break from preaching in the Temple so much, the most publicand provocative venue for their angry Sanhedrin opponents.

The SECOND motivation for slowing their growth was insufficient infrastructure. That’s the issue the Hellenist widows will raise in point #2: in their view, the church has clearly grown TOO big too fast, because people are starting to fall through the cracks, get overlooked. The church’s leaders and processes for caring for those in need simply can’t keep up with the demand. And if the Hellenist widows had been in charge, they probably would’ve just said, “CAP it! Lock the church doors from the inside. No new converts. Until y’all can figure out how to accommodate those of us already in the church.

A few months ago I sat down with one of our members here who is an expert in marketing to pick his brain on how we can continue to spread the word about West Hills. After looking at our numbers and how fast we’re growing, he asked, “Are we sure we even WANT to be advertising right now? With only 4 full time staff, and 6 lay elders, trying to shepherd 170 members and reach out to another 170 or so non-member regular attenders. Do we even have the INFRASTRUCTURE to welcome additional folks INTO the church right now?”

But remember: in just ONE altar call, the church in Acts grew from a group of 120 to more than 3,000 believers back in ch2, then 2 chapters later, grew by another 5,000. And that’s just the men; we’re talking upwards of 20,000 total, with women and children; the original megachurch. And NO paid staff… just 12 apostles overseeing it all… if ANY church EVER had an excuse to pump the brakes and rethink their “growth strategy”, it was this one.

And yet, what were they doing at the END of ch5 last week? “Every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.” (v42) They never stopped marketing, because they knew their “product” was just too good. People needed JESUS too much. And God honors their missional fervency here in v1 with even more gospel growth: “in these days… the disciples were increasing in number.”

I listen to some of y’all talk about some of your parenting struggles with your teens, and I go home and hug Ellery, my 6-year old, a little tighter those nights, and I make her PROMISE me that she’ll never grow up. She is such a SWEET age right now; I’ve heard Kindergarten – 5th grade called the “golden years” of parenting. When they’re old enough to wipe their own butts, but NOT old enough yet to think that THEY know how to wipe butts FAR better than YOU do. I wonder how many of us, if we could genetically modify our kids to stay 6 years old forever, would do it? Never even have to put up with those difficult adolescent years, never have to say goodbye as they leave for college, get married and move away. That’s what we’ve done with our DOGS, isn’t it? Breed them to look like they’re cute little puppies their entire lives. Cockapoos and Maltipoos and Yorkiepoos – all KINDS of poos! It’s downright UNNATURAL!

Because healthy living things are meant to grow. And the CHURCH is a living organism; we are the “BODY of Christ”. Moreover, Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of HELL shall not prevail against it”; according to Jesus, any impetus to squelch the growth of the church, the building of HIS church, isn’t just misguided; it’s downright SATANIC. Satan LOVES it when churches plateau, stagnate, decline, dwindle… DIE. NOTHING brings Satan greater joy.

No, friends – “growth is natural”; we’ve got to NORMALIZE it. Life group leaders: has your life group grown by 70% in the past 3 years? Healthy living things grow. If it hasn’t, that’s not due to a lack of interest. We’ve taken an average of 10 people through Entry Point every other month for the last 2-3 years, and the majority of them check the box that they’d like to check out a life group. Are we inviting, welcoming them in? “Well our group’s getting big and then we’d have to split” – Yes, healthy things grow, and multiply. I’m not looking forward to the day I kick my kids out of the house either, but it’s better than the alternative. That’s the natural life cycle of families, life groups, churches, successful businesses, etc.

But one last quick point here: Sometimes UNHEALTHY things grow too. You’re not healthy if you’re not growing, but just because you ARE growing, that doesn’t make you healthy. Got that?

Know what ELSE grows? Cancer. Mold. Gangrene. Wildfires.

So let’s be careful to recognize that our growth here at West Hills doesn’t PROVE that we’re healthy. Joel Osteen’s church is growing too. Islam is growing even faster than Christianity is.

If growth was the GOAL in and of itself, we could definitely grow the church even faster – turn our kids area – the Doxa – into an amusement park, start a “virtual campus” for people who wanna “do church from the comfort of their own couch”.

And you can grow a BODY faster too – by shooting up a bunch of steroids, shooting your kids full of artificial growth hormones. But that’s probably not good for them, is it? Not healthy.

Growth may be natural, but it’s only GOOD if it’s healthy, GOSPEL-growth.

Truth #2 – Church growth poses PROBLEMS. (v1b)

Notice: Luke ties their problem in v1 directly TO their growth: “when the disciples were increasing in number, [THEN] a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews”. All this growth leads to GRUMBLING. Why? “…because their [Hellenist] widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” Remember back in ch2 at Pentecost, when Jews from all over the world had traveled to Jerusalem for the festival – “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, etc. etc. etc.”. Well, 3,000 of them got saved, and decided to stick around and join the church in Jerusalem. But they were “Hellenists”, ie “GREEKS”. They belonged formerly to the Jewish Diaspora, the community of Jews living outside of Judea who were largely influenced by their surrounding Greek culture. And many of the Jews who’d grown up IN Jerusalem, ie, the Hebrews, apparently looked down their noses at the Hellenists, as sell-outs, “mudbloods”.

Now, there are actually THREE problems with the church here in v1:

First, the PARTIALITY of the Hebrews. We know from ch4 that the church was already operating at this time as something like a communal welfare office for those in need, including widows, who had no family to help provide for their material needs (remember: no Social Security or Medicare yet). So apparently certain HEBREWS had been charged with overseeing the church’s “Meals on Wheels” program – makes sense: they knew Jerusalem best, knew where everyone lived – but they started showing partiality toward the native Judean widows. And that’s a SIN. James 2:1 – “show no partiality”; 1 Tim 5:21 “do nothing from partiality.”

Secondly, there’s the COMPLAINING by the Hellenists. “There arose a “gon-GOOS-mos”; a murmuring, a grumbling. It’s the same word Paul uses in Philippians 2:14 when he exhorts us to “Do all things without grumbling”. More sin.

Now, the Hellenist widows were rightfully upset by the Hebrews’ partiality here. But what SHOULD they have done about it? Instead of griping, they should have just come and talked to the apostles, right? Actually, according to Jesus in Matthew 18, before they even TOOK IT to the church leadership, they should have confronted the Hebrew dinner distributors directly, given them a chance to repent and make it right.

PARENTS – can I give y’all a free parenting tip this morning: if your kids are over the age of about THREE and they’re fighting, you know what your response oughta be, at least the first time they come to you and tattle on each other? Three simple words: “WORK IT OUT”. Work it out. Too many people over-parent these days; we gotta teach our kids to work out their own problems. Plus, it makes your job easier in BOTH the short-term AND the long-term. Don’t infantilize them. Growth is good.

But that brings us to the third and biggest problem of ALL here, and that’s their shared sin of DISUNITY.

1 Cor 1:10 “be united”

Ps 133:1 “dwell in unity”

2 Cor 13:11 “agree with one another, and live in peace”

Eph 4:3 “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”

Too many biblical injunctions for UNITY to even scratch the surface, but most significant of all is Jesus’ prayer in John 17; the very last thing Jesus prayed for his followers, before going to the cross: “that they may be perfectly one, [Father,] so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” Brothers and sisters: Our love for one another in the Christian community is supposed to be the proof that GOD’S love is REAL to those who are outside the Church. And for 5 chapters it WAS; the Church’s unity was a HUGE reason God was “adding to their numbers daily”. But in ch6 we get the first whiff of DISUNITY in the Church, and we’ve never been the same since.

The world has given us lots of reasons to DIVIDE over these past 2 years: over masks and vaccines; over BLM and CRT; over candidates and elections. But just consider some of the ways that Satan would love to use even our church GROWTH to divide us, if possible:

*One of the more common answers we hear at Entry Point when we ask, “What attracted you to West Hills?” is “Well, we were just looking for a smaller church.” And I may let it slide when you’re new at Entry Point, but by the time you make it to the MEMBERSHIP class, I’m gonna make sure I’ve asked you in response: “So what’s your plan in another 2 or 3 years when God willing, West Hills continues to grow? And we end up the same size as the church you’re coming here from?” Size is a BAD reason to leave a church. I know small churches that don’t love one another well, and big churches that do. “Authentic community” is not a SIZE issue; it’s a culture issue.

*Here’s another, related one: “I love how accessible you are, as a pastor; I’ve never been at a church where the pastor invited me out for lunch.” And I’m blessed to be able to do that… for now. But will you still stick around when our processes inevitably have to change? We’re getting close to having as many people here as there are days in the year; eventually I’m gonna run out of lunches. I don’t say that to sound self-important; for most of you, one meal with me is probably MORE than enough. I’m just saying: that’s a “small church” culture thing that WILL have to change if and as the church continues to grow.

And the list of potential problems just goes on:

*More people means more MONEY – bigger budget – which just means more opportunities to disagree over how to SPEND it; bigger fights.

*We’re already starting to run out of chairs in the 10:45 service; I’ve sorta been treating that one like a “Work it out amongst yourselves” kind of problem; I’m still waiting to see who the best Christians are (besides the folks already attending the 9:00 service, who obviously are the most holy); who’s willing to wake up 2 hours earlier to help balance our services out and free up seats for visitors; which of our big 9:00 Sunday school classes is more Christian and willing to move to the 10:45 hour.

*What about when Pastor Brian has to start cutting people from the Worship team. Because we’re blessed to have 5 or 6 pianists now, but we don’t actually NEED 5 or 6, we just need the best 3. Are you gonna get your feelings hurt and leave the church?

*How do we make sure we stay on MISSION as a church? When we’re getting enough people here that we could easily fill up the whole church calendar just socializing with one another and entertaining ourselves to death; how do we stay outwardly and upwardly focused?

Church growth poses all KINDS of unique PROBLEMS.

BUUUUUT (ready for some GOOD news?)

#3 – Church growth ALSO presents us with OPPORTUNITIES. (vv2-6)

I believe it was John Adams who said, “Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.” That’s how the apostles treated THISproblem in Acts 6. Or “these problems”, plural, I should say, all 3 of them. As a matter of fact, they found a solution that not onlysolved the church’s problems of partiality, grumbling and disunity all at once; they managed to circumvent three ADDITIONALproblems that would have undoubtedly arisen had the apostles just opted for the EASIEST solution to the widows’ grievance.

Here’s what I mean: the EASIEST solution would have just been to oversee the “Meals on Wheels” program themselves. Someonemust have at least suggested that, because the apostles felt it necessary to call the “full number of the disciples” together in v2 and let them know, “It’s not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

Now, we don’t know whether this idea came from the WIDOWS, or from the Hebrew table servers, or if perhaps it even came from one of the APOSTLES. But initially, at least, the idea must have had some appeal. For 3 reasons:

1) They say sometimes if you want something done RIGHT… You gotta [WHAT?] Do it yourself, right. “Clearly the church laity can’t be trusted to allot the food fairly; we’ll just step in and take care of it…”

2) No one likes asking for help, do they? I love like 90% of my job here, but one of the worst parts has GOT to be recruiting volunteers. “Hey, we’ve got an opening right now at the church for the “Deacon of Hellenist Widows Food Deliverer” position; the job is about as fun and sexy as it sounds; and did I mention it’s UNPAID.”

But #3) and maybe most obfuscating of all for the apostles – I’m sure they didn’t want the rest of the church thinking that they viewed themselves as ABOVE the work. Like, “Wait a minute, Jesus washed y’all’s FEET, but you can’t even serve a poor widow some FOOD?!” Didn’t Jesus say “a servant is not above his master” (Matt 10:24)? Didn’t He say, ‘The greatest among you shall be your servant’ (Matt 23:11)? But now y’all think you’re too GOOD to serve tables?

See, there were some COMPELLING reasons to just step in and do it themselves; I imagine this was a LOOONG “apostles’ meeting”, if they had to decide things by consensus, like we do at OUR elders meetings. But eventually, they made the difficult, but the RIGHT call: “We’re gonna stick to praying and preaching; y’all – the church – need to choose 7 men to oversee the food distribution, and then we’ll anoint them for the job.” Because what the apostles ultimately realized was that there were 3 even BIGGER reasons NOT to do it themselves; 3 OPPORTUNITIES here, that averted 3 even bigger problems:

The first was the opportunity to PRIORITIZE (vv2,4); and prioritization prevents the problem of MISSION-DRIFT.

Every minute the apostles spend distributing food is a minute they’re NOT preaching and distributing the GOSPEL. Every tablethey “deacon” – that’s the Greek word, diakonEo: “to serve or minister” – means less time they can spend “deaconing” God’s WORD; same root word in v4, “the ministry of the word”, and prayer.

See, it may START with just distributing a few meals for the widows’ ministry, but next thing they know they’re gonna be running the church’s matzo ball soup kitchen for the missions ministry, and leading the mid-week Torah school for the kids ministry, and dragging dead bodies out for the finance team when people lie about their offering… and before you KNOW it, you’ve filled the church with lots of great PROGRAMS, but what’s conspicuously absent is any real PREACHING or PRAYER.

Prioritization ensures that the main thing STAYS the main thing. But here’s the thing about church GROWTH: the main thing might CHANGE over time. When they were a church of only 120, the apostles might have been ABLE to preach and pray and stillserve the 2 or 3 widows in the congregation. And they might have NEEDED to, because the other 108 people may have been occupied with the missions team and the kids ministry and the finances. But one of the great benefits of growth is it allows for greater specialization. Your priorities can get more narrowly focused. Early on, Bill Gates was hand-writing all the code in his garage, Jeff Bezos had to drive packages all over the country (ok, probably not, but you get the point). As the thing grows, your priorities change.

Just before I transitioned into the lead pastor role here, there wasn’t a JOB description for the position, so the elders asked me to write my own, and one of our former elders in particular questioned me, “So I see you’ve outlined 3 overarching responsibilities for yourself here: 1) preaching/teaching, 2) shepherding/care-giving, and 3) leading/developing leaders; how do you envision yourself prioritizing your time between the 3?” And I thought for a minute and replied, “Well, I think the preaching and teaching is most important, then probably the shepherding, then leading, so maybe 50%, 30%, 20%?”

And HIS response was: “You think John MacArthur only spends HALF his time in the word, preparing his sermons? You oughta be spending 90% of your time on the preaching!”

And MY response was: “You think John MacArthur solo pastors a church of 170 people?” (This was BEFORE we hired Thad, much less Brian, mind you) I said, “I’ll tell ya what, I’d LOVE to spend all my time here preaching; why don’t YOU handle all our hospital visits, and all the premarital counseling, and the POST-marital counseling, and run our staff meetings, and Entry Point, and the membership classes, and oversee the life groups – and you can field the emails and phone calls I get when folks don’t like something I said in a sermon and have those chats for me. I’d be DELIGHTED to devote 100% of my time to preaching and teaching!”

Now, I share that story not to denigrate him or dignify myself, but to CELEBRATE with you as a church that we are in a healthierplace today than we were 3 years ago. It’s not healthy to have a lead pastor who has to fill up the baptistry the night before he does the baptizing. There’s just a clear ROLE distinction there, biblically, between an elder and a deacon; a “shepherd-leader” and a “servant”. One’s not BETTER than the other; they’re just different. And differentiation and prioritization are important. If MYpriorities are gonna be preaching and praying, that means it’s gotta be someone ELSE’s priorities to unclog church toilets, to teach Vacation Bible School, to brew the coffee on Sunday mornings.

And THAT leads us to opportunity #2 – the opportunity to EMPOWER (vv3,5), which prevents the problem of COMPLACENCY, laziness.

Notice, not only do the apostles refuse to serve the tables, they refuse to even ELECT the table-servants! They empower the CHURCH to choose 7 deacons; this is congregational church polity at its FINEST. And I want you to notice 3 effects that their empowerment HAD on the church:

1) Because they actually got a VOICE in the decision, the church was more OPEN to the change, to their new deacons; v5 says: “what [the apostles] said pleased the whole gathering”.

2) This must have inspired others in the church to dream and pray about how God might use THEM in leadership one day as well, considering they selected men, v3: “from among you”. They didn’t just hop on churchstaffing.com and find the best resume and source it out. They saw a need, and the CHURCH stepped up to meet it. Our paid staff has an important role to play here in the life and leadership of the church. But if Thad, Brian, Ally and Lana and I did ALL of the work around here, it would make the rest of y’all lazy and complacent. And we love y’all too much to DO that to you.

3) Thirdly, by being empowered as decision-makers, the church becomes more EMPATHETIC. It’s interesting to note that all 7 of the new deacons the church chooses have GREEK names. They put themselves in the Hellenist widows’ shoes, and pick Hellenist deacons who won’t keep neglecting them.

So empowering the church to BE the church produces BUY-IN, inspiration, and empathy.

And #3 – the third and last opportunity growth presents is the joy of DELEGATING, which helps prevent the problem of BURN-OUT.

You know the OTHER issue with having apostles, or elders, who run the soup kitchen, the kids min, the finances, the welcome team, the A/V booth… they get TIRED. If they DO stay on mission and TRY to still devote themselves to preaching and prayer on TOP of everything else, they’re gonna get exhausted, and RESENTFUL of the very people they’re supposed to be SERVING.

But delegating is a beautiful thing. A leader’s job – whether you’re a pastor or a parent; a ministry leader in the church or a manager at work – a leader’s job is to work yourself OUT of a job. At least out of your current job, then you find bigger fish to fry. That’s what the apostles do it here in v7: “they prayed and laid their hands on [the 7 new deacons]”, and entrusted THEM with the responsibility of overseeing “Meals on Wheels”. The widows tried to thrust it on the apostles’ shoulders; they say: “Nope; we’re gonna delegate that one out”. This story is reminiscent of the one about MOSES, in Exodus ch18, where his wise father-in-law Jethro has to confront him about his need to DELEGATE OUT his role as judge over every minor legal dispute amongst the people of Israel to other qualified leaders. They’ve gotta be qualified. Same holds true back in Acts 6: they’ve gotta be “men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom”. 1 Timothy 3 adds: “​​Deacons… must be dignified, not double-tongued,[c] not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. 9 They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. 11 Their wives likewise[d] must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.”

APPLICATION FOR US AT WEST HILLS… [give examples] We need DEACONS!!

In conclusion, point #4) Church growth should EXCITE US. (v7)

Don’t miss here in v7: up until this point, the Lord has been “ADDING” to their numbers. He’s even subtracted FROM their numbers in ch5 w Ananias & Sapphira. And God will never “divide” His Church. But ch6 is the first mention of God MULTIPLYING the church – “the number of the disciples multiplied greatly”. That’s how important good leadership principles of prioritizing, empowering, and delegating are; God uses them to MULTIPLY his church.

And notice ALSO in v7: “a great many of the PRIESTS became obedient to the faith.” These were guys who appreciatedorganizational effectiveness; the orderly structure and processes the apostles implemented here. We often hear people criticize “organized religion”. “I’m SPIRITUAL, but I’m not a fan of ORGANIZED religion”. Would you prefer DIS-organized religion? Can you make religion so mechanical that you eliminate any need or role for the Holy Spirit? Sure. But our God Himself is not a God of confusion, but of ORDER (1 Cor 14:33, 40). Organization is good. God uses it to GROW His Church

And he does it HERE by attracting the Church’s fiercest OPPONENTS! The priests! What an encouragement to us, as we close that GOD TRULY CAN SAVE ANYONE!

You know, some folks in the church get real leery of counting people, taking attendance – “It’s not about the numbers!” True, but you DO know there’s an entire book of the Bible called “NUMBERS”, right? Apparently numbers are important to God. “Luke counted people because people count.” (Merida, Acts, 88). Here at West Hills, we take attendance every Sunday; we COUNT you because you COUNT. You MATTER to God, so you matter to US, as a church. And so too do those OUTSIDE the Church who we so desperately want to see welcomed INTO it, and transformed by the life-changing good news of the gospel: Jesus Christ died and resurrected for the forgiveness of their sins.