The Missing Link
“For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” —THE APOSTLE PAUL (PHILIPPIANS 2:13)
Even a casual look at church growth metrics reveals three bottlenecks in our efforts to reach more people for Jesus: campuses, weekends and pastors. The King never intended for Kingdom-building to be limited to one particular place, on one, maybe two particular days of the week, through one particular leader or maybe a relatively small group of them.
Seven (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) is exactly seven times larger than one (Sunday). 100 (the average size of the American local church congregation) is 100 times larger than one (the congregation’s pastor). And 1,500 (the number of specific contexts where oikos interaction regularly occurs) is much larger than one (the GPS location of the local church facility). I mean, just follow the numbers any you’ll eventually find the truth.
Understand, I’m not railing against church facilities, or gathering together every weekend, or hearing from pastors once we arrive! I’ve been a pastor for over 50 years, and I leveraged weekends and church facilities for every one of those 50! But, considering how much of a typical local church’s annual budget is committed to salaries, facilities, and weekends, I’m just saying they all better be purposeful!
Remember, the Church is growing most rapidly in regions of the world where there are no church buildings, no public worship services, and no professional clergy.
The church we served for 38 years elevated the oikos principle consistently. But it was before that, about 45 years ago, when I discovered the oikos principle, as the youth pastor at a different church. I know that every bad idea starts out as a good idea, so I wondered, “Maybe oikos just sounds like a good idea.” So, with the permission of my Senior Pastor, I put it to the test. Over the course of that first year, our small youth group soon began to grow exponentially and within a few years the group had outgrown the ability of the church to sustain it (high school students don’t generally tithe).
We were providing the same gatherings, promoting the same themes, studying the same Bible passages, and pursuing the same discipleship strategies we always had. The difference is that all of them had suddenly been given a well-articulated and defined purpose. And that began to infuse new energy and clarity into everything.
But don’t just take my word for it. Take a few minutes and listen to John’s story about how the same thing happened at Grace Church.