Hartland Summer Conference 2018: Prepared for the Final Crisis

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Jim Howard

Grow Your Church- Part 1

Briefly, I want to just talk about the concept for a moment of discipleship by starting with a quote.

This particular quote comes from page 58 of Christian Service.

Elomite says, it is evident that all the sermons that have been preached have not developed a large class of self-denying workers.

This subject is to be considered as involving the most serious results.

The churches are withering up because they have failed to use their talents in diffusing light." So pretty powerful quote.

It says what is it that has not worked in developing this large class of self-denying workers.

So sermons, preaching, is not discipleship.

I find this particular phrase fascinating.

It says, we're not developing a large class of self-denying workers.

It's as if the statement implies that our goal is Self-denying workers.

Hey, all the sermons we preach are not producing a large class of self-denying workers.

As if what we're trying to do is create a large class of self-denying workers.

Well, I got thinking about this and it kind of took me to a couple Bible verses.

Then Jesus said to his disciples if anyone desires to come after me let him do what?

So What do we call someone who follows after Jesus?

So a disciple is someone who denies himself.

He also said, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.

So as I evaluated it biblically, I realized that a self-denying worker is just a disciple.

And I'll remind you that The Great Commission is to go therefore and make disciples.

So the Great Commission then is to go therefore and make self-denying workers.

So our goal, the commission Jesus gave us, is to go and make self-denying workers, but all the sermons preached have not been making a large class of self-denying workers.

They've not been making a large class of disciples.

The Great Commission is not merely to make church members but to make disciples who are self-denying workers for Christ.

We need to think about that really hard because when we think about the commission we're given We tend to put our time and our resources into our task.

And if our task is to add to the membership, then we're going to focus on baptisms and then our focus will shift.

Not that our focus will shift off of baptisms but our focus will shift off of the individuals that we baptized and they will turn then to individuals that we have not yet baptized and then we'll put all of our investment in the people.

So if our task is to baptize and make members then we're always going to be focusing on people who have not yet been baptized.

Once they're baptized our focus shifts off of them and we have this mentality.

We do not understand that what we're actually doing is stifling the growth of the church.

We're stifling it because if you don't make a member into a self-denying worker then you don't grow the church.

Then you're working on the plan of addition when we should be working on the plan of multiplication.

So we've got to get intentional about not shifting our focus off of people just because they're baptized.

The only way we can do that is if we realize, no, our goal is to make self-denying workers.

Well, I'm going to just throw up some keys here.

This isn't the main portion of what I want to say, but I do want to at least give you some things that churches seem to have some success in keeping their membership strong when they do these things.

At the General Conference there's a committee.

It's called the Nurture and Retention Committee.

And it was put together because of the statistics that have come out of Secretariat of the retention percentages in the church and the struggles we have with that because since 1965 4 out of every 10 members have left the church, so our retention is about 60%.

So I was going to do a training at the end of last year, I was going, flying out to, I'm trying to remember where I was, Taiwan.

They were having in the North, or NSD, the Northern Asia Pacific Division, they were having a seminar for their union directors and leaders on retention and reclamation.

Keeping members, they don't leave, right?

It's getting back the ones that have left.

So I'm headed out to this this thing, this seminar, and on my way I'm thinking about it.

And this is the, these are the thoughts that I had I want to share with you and see what what your your answers are to the questions that were going around in my head.

I asked myself the question what is the church doing to retain me?

Have you ever asked yourself that question?

Now I have to tell you though, because you may think that I feel differently about this than I do, I don't want you to misunderstand.

Someone who has invested their heart and life into the understanding of the message as we understand it at Seventh-day Adventist.

You see, I've been working to win people to this.

I've been seeking to persuade people to this and Sometimes it's gone well and sometimes it hasn't.

But every time I do it, I learn a little bit more.

And I become more persuaded, more convinced.

I've had to wrestle with the anti-Ellen White people.

I've had to wrestle with the Jesus only people.

I've had to wrestle with the laws nailed to the cross, people.

You know, you wrestle with that enough, and you have to ask a lot of questions, don't you?

Because I don't just do stuff because somebody says to do stuff.

I don't like this idea of closing the back door of the church.

You know, how would you feel if I said, okay, if, Norbert, would you please lock all the doors?

Because some of these people might want to leave, but I don't want them to leave.

Grow Your Church- Part 1

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