Growing Pains

Watching my kids get older, especially early on in life, a lot of changes take place… from kids to tweens to teens.

Jeans become floods, long sleeves stop just past the elbow, every year our kids had to get all new clothes.

As they grow up their styles change… from Gymboree to GymShark, from Thomas the Train to Air Jordans,

Appetites change… from the kids’ menu to the adult menu, from Kool-ade to Red Bull.

Growing up is be expensive but there are benefits to growing up. We move past changing diapers… bottles and high chairs, wiping faces and noses. Some things we enjoyed doing, other phases we are happy to move past.

As kids grow up we give them more responsibility. As parents we need to trust them more so they are better prepared to become adults. Growing up can be painful.

In Acts 6 we see rapid growth continue and because of the church was reaching more people, the people started to complain. The church leadership ran into an issue, a complaint that needed attention.

If the early church was going to experience continued numerical and spiritual growth the apostles and the church needed attend to the growing pain. That required trusting and empowering others to lead and serve within the church. The apostles could not do it all.

Acts 6:1 ESV

1 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Acts 6:2–7 ESV

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

PRAY

We see that things were going well, the church was growing, people were being saved, signs and wonders followed, and the needs were being met within the church.

That’s when an issue came to the surface. This issue was not outside of the church, it was within the church.

A group of people were being neglected and they voiced their complaint. They could have ignored the complaints, they could have gotten offended and stopped ministering all together or just ministered to the Jewish widows and continued to neglect the Hellenistic Jews.

But instead they choose to listen and make the necessary adjustments so that no groups within the church would be neglected.

First they had to listen to the complaint,

Secondly, they had to deal with the issue.

Thirdly, wisely choose the right people.

With more people in the church needed more programs and larger ministries. More programs means more administrative and logistical problems that threatened to consume all the apostles’ time. Rather than neglect the spiritual disciplines of prayer and teaching, the apostles called and commissioned a group of men to attend to these pressing needs within the body.

All churches will experience growing pains, it’s natural, and it’s healthy. With more people brings more needs with more issues within the body of Christ. When people complain, don’t just write them off, never talk bad about that person or those people, we must learn, we must listen and we must assess the problem accurately.

A: Assess your problem accurately

Sometimes people complain all the time because they are naturally negative. Don’t be that person. Be willing to serve and help fill in the gaps. Anyone can point out gaps but God wants us to present or be the solution.

In this case we see this is a major gap that needed to be filled so the problem was assessed accurately.

Acts 6:1 ESV

1 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

The number of believers in Jerusalem made it necessary to organize the sharing of resources. Unfortunately, some people were being overlooked and raised a complaint.

We have 2 groups within the church:

1. believers who spoke Hebrew or Aramaic were the native, local Jewish Christians.

2. The believers who spoke Greek were the Hellenistic Jews from other lands who had been converted at Pentecost. They could not speak Aramaic, Greek was their native tongue.

This resulted in a class distinction between the two groups of people. Though all were Christians, their backgrounds and outlooks were different.

There were more widows than usual since many of the widows who came from other Greek-speaking countries had returned to Jerusalem and their money had run out so they needed help.

In a patriarchal society property was passed on from father to son, and the son was responsible to care for the mother. These widows had no wealth of there own.

That’s why the early church recognized, “widows” as a group worthy of help within the church—1 Timothy 5:3–16.

This “discrimination” against the Greek-speaking believers was more likely caused by a language and class barrier.

Meeting both the physical needs and the spiritual needs within the body of believers was a priority in the church.

So, did this complaint hold merit and was this problem one that could be solved?

Yes, people were being discriminated against and the Apostles saw that this was very fixable but the problem needed to be addressed. This gap needed to be filled, so after assessing the situation, the Apostles acted with wisdom to quickly solve this issue.

B: Budget your time strategically

Time is limited. We work, we have a family, a marriage, we have church services, activities and ministries. Our kids have activities. We only have one pie but so often we don’t use our time strategically. We often act as if our time is unlimited.

The apostles recognized their limitations so they clearly communicated what needed to be their priorities.

Acts 6:2 ESV

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Due to both physical energy and time restraints, it would not be possible for the Apostles to do both preaching the Word and serving tables.

'Serve tables” could refer to the tables used for serving food or maybe even for passing out funds to those in need.

The apostles did not think that they were “above” waiting on tables but, they knew that they had been called to preach and teach the Word of God and that must be their priority.

This is something I need to be better at as your pastor. My first response is that if there is a need I will just to jump in and fill it. I can do it, I love working with people, and I love serving along side others.

But also my insecurities can creep up, I don’t want other people to think that I’m being lazy, that I’m too good to get my hands dirty.

But I must prioritize setting time aside to pray and hear from God so I can deliver God’s Word accurately and effectively. A message that is Holy Spirit empowered, creative, and heart felt. If I don’t have time to do that, I am not budgeting my time correctly.

If I don’t have time to be prepared for worship I’m not budgeting my time strategically.

We need to budget our time strategically.

We must stay close to Jesus, we must set up boundaries and guardrails so we can effectively live out our core values with total conviction.

When dealing with complaints, offense is my initial response. If the Apostles responded with offense at this complaint an entire group of people would have left the church.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the problems that we face. The problems in our world, in our community and even in our church. However, we must choose to be the solution to the problem not the creator of the problem.

We all go through times where we need help. Let the church be the church and receive God’s love through HIS body but we are not live long victims of society. We are more the conquerers the Christ.

We must remember that…

EVERY MEMBER is a MINISTER

… The ministry of the Word should never be neglected because of administrative burdens. As your pastors I cannot do everything, nor am I expected to.

I never want our church to be a “pastor driven church.” The church must be an army of people who love Jesus and love one another.

As your pastor, I am called to “equip God’s people to… build up the church”

Ephesians 4:12 (NLT)

12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

The New Testament model is that in every church member is a minister!

When all believers are involved in ministry, the church will be able to utilize and enjoy the gifts that each believer possess. When that happens we multiply the impact of the Body of Christ.

C: Choose your leaders wisely

The apostles kept their priorities straight. They were successful in part because they realized that both tasks: meeting the physical needs of the church body and meeting the spiritual and educational needs of the body.

So this is what they proposed…

Acts 6:3–4 ESV

3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Clarify the requirements

Here we see four requirements from the candidates:

According to Acts 6:3 they had to be

believers

having a good reputation and integrity

spiritually mature

full of wisdom

—demonstrating their ability to apply God’s truth appropriately to life situations.

None of the requirements had anything to do with talent… or credentials… or education… or their prior experience.

These requirements had to do with their faith (committed followers of Christ), their character (good reputation), their spiritual maturity (full of the Spirit), and (full of wisdom).

People who carry heavy responsibilities and work closely with others should have these qualities.

Being in a position of leadership we can find ourselves overwhelmed with responsibilities. The pressure of leadership can be heavy but let me encourage you to prayerfully determine what your priorities should be, and then find others to respond to the legitimate needs that you have.

If you are not in leadership, realize that you have gifts that can be used by God in various areas of the church’s ministry… go serve willingly and use those gifts God has given you to bless the church.

D: Distribute your load widely

Acts 6:5–6 ESV

5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

All the believers were pleased with the solution, so these seven men were selected.

Stephen and Philip were likely placed first because they are the only two whose ministries will be explained later in Acts (chapters 7–8). We know very little about the other five.

But what we do know that all seven have Greek names. They selected 7 Greek men who could effectively minister to the Hellenistic Jews.

They picked the godliest men they could find and they said yes, I will serve. These highly qualified men did not grumble at the thought of serving food to the elderly! But they served gladly and this apparently small; trivial act would lay a good foundation for the future spread of the gospel to the Greek world.

Are ministry slots filled with “the best person” or with “just a warm body”?

How about those unglamorous but necessary positions of service, why don’t we see people rushing to fill them? What reason do we shy or even run away from them?

If our church is going to be effective, we must be like an army of Godly servants who are willing to do whatever is asked of them.

All of us are ministers. If we are a member of the church, we are a minister in the church, no exemption.

TAKE AWAY:

Assess your problem accurately (6:1–2)—Are you attacking the right problem?

Budget your time strategically (6:2, 4)—Are your priorities right?

Choose your leaders wisely (6:3)—Are you choosing and following biblically qualified leaders?

Distribute your load widely (6:3, 5–6)—Are you delegating the load? Are you doing your part?