After a person gets saved, maturity in the Christian walk should be his next natural desire. This is where a regular time reading the Bible will come in really handy. The church should be the main body encouraging Christians to have seriousness in Bible-reading. It should help them in understanding what the Scriptures is saying if it wants them to turn out to be “quality Christians”. And so, it is essential that the Church creates programs that will lead to this.
Once I was asked if it is also important that the Church focuses on achieving quantity along the efforts of developing quality Christians. My answer is simple. If what you mean about quantity is the need for Christians to go out and share the Gospel so that souls will be added to the Church, my answer is definitely “Yes”. But if what you’re talking about is, plain and simple, adding people to the roster that we will declare as members of our congregation that were talked into joining the weekly worship services even through non-biblical means, my answer is a big “NO”.
First of all, we should be reminded of a basic truth from the Gospel--- no one can be saved by church membership. And so, why will we engage in creating quantity in the church through gimmicks if the people we manage to bring in to our local churches will still end up in Hell when they die? This has been a sad scene in our present time… people being nurtured in mega churches and they don’t have the slightest clue that they will still be residents of Hell someday! These churches rarely talk about sin and God’s distastes of it but instead, talk at length about things that tickle the ears of people (2 Tim. 4:3-4), even if the talk is more pop-psychology than Scriptural. There are members of these churches that still go to places that they shouldn’t go to, look at things that their eyes should be close to, do things that are so unlikely of biblical-Christians, etc. Their pastors don’t tell them that these are wrong because of fear of offending them which may lead to their exodus from their congregation. The goal is to make people stay as long as they can in the church, and not anymore helping them see their true standing before a just and holy God so that they will repent and put their trust on Jesus for their salvation.
Another thing we must remember is that if we do things our way and not God’s way, He is not pleased with whatever results we bring. Jesus never embraced gimmicks when he was here. He always operated along the principle of “Law to the proud and Grace to the humble.” It is only after a person realizes his failure to reach God’s standard of what is “good” that Jesus gave grace. The disciples and Paul followed Jesus’ footsteps and so God was for sure pleased with them. Jesus knew that gimmicks do not turn in converts, but the preaching of sin, righteousness and judgment. And so, if Jesus did not do it that way, why should we?
I told the person that asked me the question that we must always focus on quality, and never on quantity. The reason? Because if quality is achieved, quantity will naturally come. Why? Because a Christian that has been nurtured well (has quality in his Christian walk) knows that it is his duty to tell others of the true gospel. He does it Jesus’ way and so the Holy Spirit works in his evangelism efforts, resulting to souls being added to God’s family. One reason why churches engage in gimmicks is because the members of theses churches lack the quality needed to push themselves to share the Gospel to people. But find me a church that truly (in the biblical sense) cares for the growth of its members and I can guarantee you that it’s a soul-winning church and therefore, is growing in number.
We should be reminded that the first step in developing quality Christians is to preach a biblical Gospel message, one that clearly shows the need for a person to repent of his sins before he comes to Christ for help. Repentance is an understanding that sin has strained our relationship with God and so we make a conscious decision to forsake it which will result to a change in lifestyle, from a sinful one to a God-honoring life. Using the Law makes a person understand the importance of repentance as well as makes it a natural response to the sacrifice of Jesus at the cross. The Law makes sin abound but helps makes Grace abound more (Rom. 5:20).
It will definitely be a big source of joy to someday see our churches filled with true worshippers up to the rafters. But let’s not confuse the increase of people in our churches as a sign of God moving in our gimmicks. Let’s achieve quantity God’s way. Let’s achieve quantity by first developing quality in people who have already been called to the family of God.
