1-6-26 | Growing the Church or Filling the Nursery?

"You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead… you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food…. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right…. Solid food is for those who are mature.. who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.” - Hebrews 5:12-14 

It’s easy for a church to get excited about numbers... full seats.. new visitors.. and growing attendance. After all… who doesn’t want to see their sanctuary filled?   But if our focus stops at getting people in the door and never moves to growing them in Christ... we’ve missed the heart of Jesus’ command. 

"When the church becomes content with conversions but neglects discipleship… we become more like a nursery than a training ground."  

We host spiritual infants who are dependent on milk... never teaching them how to stand firm… feed themselves from the Word… and lead others to Christ. 

A nursery is a place of care and comfort... but not of maturity.... It’s meant to be temporary. 

"A healthy church doesn’t just birth believers... it builds them up into the   likeness of Jesus."  

Without discipleship... we risk raising generations of believers who know about Jesus but don’t know how to follow Him in daily obedience.. holiness.. and love. 

  Questions we need to be asking ourselves… 

• Are we more passionate about attendance or about transformation? 

• Are we equipping people to become disciple-makers… or just church members? 

Jesus didn’t command us to “go and make converts.”… He called us to make disciples.... That means walking with people through their questions... their struggles… and their sanctification. 

   "Making disciples is slower than filling a room... but it’s how the Kingdom grows deep... not just wide."