Growth of the Church

Persecution

The death of Stephen started the great persecution of the first century church. It was initiated by Saul. He was in hearty approval of the death of Stephen.

Saul was a Judaizer. He had grown up in the Jewish tradition and had been taught by one of the greatest Jewish rabbi’s Gamaliel. He was well established as a highly qualified Jew. Phil 3:5-6

Philippians 3:5–6 (NASB95)

circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

He met all the qualifications to be well established in the Jewish faith. He built his life on his faith. Unfortunately his faith was misdirected to himself and religion. His faith was not in Jesus. As a matter of fact he believed that he was doing God a favor by persecuting the church. John 16:2

John 16:2 NASB95

“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

Saul believed that he was doing a good thing. Because he believed that he was doing a good thing for God, he was very zealous or passionate about the persecution of Christians. The Bible says that he went beyond Jerusalem to imprison men and women for their faith in Jesus. Acts 8:3

Acts 8:3 NASB95

But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.

The persecution was so great that the church was scattered into Judea and Samaria. This was Jesus plan. You will recall what He said in Acts 1:8

Acts 1:8 NASB95

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

The persecution of the church drove people out of their comfort zone and moved them to a land that was not their home. Fortunately, the scattered church continued to spread the gospel and the church grew exponentially.

Church in America

Unfortunately, the church in America is in a sharp decline. Gallop has attributed this to generational differences. In March of 2021 Jeffery Jones of Gallop wrote an article that I would like to share regarding the decline in churches in America.

Generational Differences Linked to Change in Church Membership

Church membership is strongly correlated with age, as 66% of traditionalists -- U.S. adults born before 1946 -- belong to a church, compared with 58% of baby boomers, 50% of those in Generation X and 36% of millennials. The limited data Gallup has on church membership among the portion of Generation Z that has reached adulthood are so far showing church membership rates similar to those for millennials.

The decline in church membership, then, appears largely tied to population change, with those in older generations who were likely to be church members being replaced in the U.S. adult population with people in younger generations who are less likely to belong. The change has become increasingly apparent in recent decades because millennials and Gen Z are further apart from traditionalists in their church membership rates (about 30 points lower) than baby boomers and Generation X are (eight and 16 points, respectively). Also, each year the younger generations are making up an increasingly larger part of the entire U.S. adult population.

Still, population replacement doesn't fully explain the decline in church membership, as adults in the older generations have shown roughly double-digit decreases from two decades ago. Church membership is down even more, 15 points, in the past decade among millennials.

The two major trends driving the drop in church membership -- more adults with no religious preference and falling rates of church membership among people who do have a religion -- are apparent in each of the generations over time.

Since the turn of the century, there has been a near doubling in the percentage of traditionalists (from 4% to 7%), baby boomers (from 7% to 13%) and Gen Xers (11% to 20%) with no religious affiliation.

Currently, 31% of millennials have no religious affiliation, which is up from 22% a decade ago. Similarly, 33% of the portion of Generation Z that has reached adulthood have no religious preference.

Also, each generation has seen a decline in church membership among those who do affiliate with a specific religion. These declines have ranged between six and eight points over the past two decades for traditionalists, baby boomers and Generation X who identify with a religious faith. In just the past 10 years, the share of religious millennials who are church members has declined from 63% to 50%.

WHY?

I believe that their is an animosity between the generations and a moral decline in our country that we have become that we have accepted. First let me share the animosity between the generations. There is a huge cultural difference between the traditionalists and the Gen X’s. These two generations function much different from one another and do not understand each other. Rather than try to understand one another I have found that they prefer to complain about each other. This is not the Christian way. We should have common ground on the gospel in spite of our cultural and generational differences. Because we have failed to go the Christian way of the gospel being passed on from generation to generation we have seen a rapid decline in church attendance and consequently morality. This is not uncommon. This happened between the Samaritans and the Jews back in Ezra 4:1-5

Ezra 4:1–5 NASB95

Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.” But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, “You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.” Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

The Jews rejected the help of people of the land and the people of the land rejected them and made life difficult for the Jews. We must overcome our generational differences through the sharing of the gospel and seek understanding regarding our differences.

The moral decline in our country has happened because the church has not been what the church should have been. Rather than making disciples many churches have become businesses. They focus on numbers and not souls. When the leadership of the church is more focused on attendance, budgets, buildings, and programs rather than lost souls it has become a business. We must return to the great commission!

We have progressed from a Christian nation, to a non-christian nation, and are now a anti- christian nation. With this I believe there will come persecution of the church. Perhaps that is what the church needs to get back on course.

Proclamation

Because of the scattering of the church due to persecution the people preached the word where ever they went. Philipp went to Samaria and preached the gospel. This is not the apostle Philipp but one of the seven that was selected to take care of the Hellenistic Jews widow food distribution.

Philipp was faithful in the small task and was now given a larger task to share the gospel in Samaria. This was huge because Samaria was an un-reached people group that had great animosity towards the Jews. They hated one another because the Jews saw the Samaritans as worse than second class citizens. They would often refer to them as dogs because they were pagans. Rather than help them they chose to hate them.

Jesus overcame this hatred and demonstrated love to a Samaritan woman. John 4:7-14

John 4:7–14 NASB95

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

John 4:25–26 (NASB95)

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

We too must go beyond our differences with people and be willing to minister and share the gospel with them. This is difficult because quite honestly we don’t want to! We must find a way to reach those that are different than us and share the truth of the gospel.

Power of the Gospel

God gave Philipp the power necessary to reach the ears and hearts of the Samaritans. Acts 8:6

Acts 8:6 NASB95

The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip, as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing.

Philipp was sharing the gospel with the Samaritans and was given the power to cast out demons and perform miracles. These substantiated the preaching of the gospel.

God may not give us the power to cast out demons or perform miracles but he does give us the power to share the gospel and lead people to salvation. When we share the gospel we unleash the Holy Spirit to affect the internal effectual call. What I mean by this is that when we share the gospel the person has to do something with it. They cannot ignore it. They will reject it, ponder on it, or receive it. It is our job to share it.

Rejoicing

When the people received the gospel there was great rejoicing. They were rejoicing because they were saved and following Jesus. Friends we must be conduits of rejoicing. We must spread the seed of the gospel in our areas of influence. This is called disciple-making. There will be great rejoicing in your circle of influence when you preach the gospel!