Causes and Cures for the Dysfunctional Church, Part III

Jesus passed a fig tree and rebuked it for not having nothing but leaves. Jesus said in John 15:15, “I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.” This is Jesus’ mandate to us. But is the church today fulfilling Jesus’ command by producing fruit that remains?

DYSFUNCTION #3 – Unfruitfulness

Unfruitfulness is the third dysfunction in the church today, and it relates to the office of the evangelist. Much of today’s growth in churches comes from transfer growth, the movement of believers from one church to another. In any given community or city there are churches that have large crowds but most of these churches have “feeder churches” (usually smaller churches that do not have the programs or facilities that the bigger church can offer) around them that are constantly feeding them people. Someone said that transfer growth is similar to getting everyone in a room to change chairs within the room…which produces a great deal of activity and bustle, but nothing really changes.

Pastor Larry Stocksdale writes in his book, The Remnant, "There are basically three levels of participation in every church: attenders, members, and multipliers. Attenders are those who sporadically make your church their headquarters. They make no commitment to finances, attendance, or small group involvement, but they consider your church “their church,” especially at Christmas and Easter. Members go to a higher level of involvement with commitment to weekly attendance, tithing, and small group participation. Members are progressing toward discipleship but may not necessarily be walking in purity, carry a burden for the lost, or know how to disciple someone else."

The third stage, the multiplier happens when evangelism springs from discipleship. When you remove the dead branches of sin, bondage, and fear from a believer ( this happens at our Encounter weekends), he comes alive! He is empowered to break the member ceiling and become a fruitful, multiplying believer in Christ.

The Cure: Multiplication Through the Evangelist

Pastor Larry Stocksdale writes, “Growing mature believers is what guarantees multiplication, and the discipleship that makes it happen is seen in the office of the evangelist. Paul describes the phenomenon in 2 Timothy 2:2, And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. The early church had no buildings, props, or sound systems. What they did have was one-on-one discipleship, and that system released an organic power that filled the entire known world.”

Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, illustrates these strategies in his book 5 steps to Making Disciples. Dr. Bright gives the example of one of his disciples who went back to Thailand and disciple 700 believers. One of those 700 preached personally to over 200,000 people in his lifetime and saw more than 20,000 people receive Christ! That is multiplication – not an event or a fruitless effort at entertainment, but a chain reaction of changed lives that exponentially grows.

Pastor Larry Stocksdale’s church that he pastors in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, now does missions using a multiplication model. In the year of 2000, Stocksdale was led of the Lord to implement a missions strategy similar to the way the Gideons International organize their bible distribution throughout the world. He began by dividing up the world into twelve zones using the same zone map the Gideon’s use. In 2001, he met with twelve solid mission leaders from each of these zones in Zurich, Switzerland, and laid out a strategy for each man to find and groom the best national leader he could locate in each of the 15 to 20 nations in his zone. Two years later as that task began to be complete, Stocksdale and his zone leaders commissioned all of those national leaders to find a team of leaders (up to twelve) in their own countries.

They committed financially to fund for one year any good national pastor who would plant a church and become accountable in his ministry to one of our network leaders. Churches began to be planted all across the world in various denominations, and the Global 12 Project was born. This simple network has now planted over 18,000 churches as of May of 2008. The Global 12 Project studies show that for every church that westerners have paid for, the national leaders have paid for four more. Multiplication is occurring because of a multiplication of accountable leaders.

[Please note if you are a pastor or church leader: Our own church at Kings Point is challenging families, small groups, and ministries to plant churches around the world using the global 12 project. If your church or ministry is interested in planting churches and getting involved in the Global 12 project, please feel free to contact me at my e-mail at randylballard@yahoo.com. For just as little as $75.00 a month, your small group or family can plant a church. What a great way to sow and multiply in the kingdom of God!]