Untitled Sermon (23)

(Church Conflict/Church Growth)

In the Book of Acts, we read about the infant church experiencing tremendous evangelistic growth.

When the Holy Spirit came, Peter preached, and about three thousand souls were saved and baptized in one day!

The church continued to grow spiritually, through discipleship, as they “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 2:42);

numerically, as “the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47); and in fellowship, “continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:47).

After the miracle of the lame man’s healing outside of the temple (Acts 3), Peter preached again, and about five thousand men were saved.

While this caused great joy in the church, not everyone in Jerusalem was excited.

The Sanhedrin began to pressure some of the leaders of the church by threatening them.

The efforts of those who tried to stop the spreading of the gospel actually caused it to spread more quickly.

Everything the enemy attempted—threats, beatings, arrests, even murder—failed miserably.

In Acts 6, however, things took a turn. The Bible says, “there arose a complaint.”

These are the words every pastor dreads to hear.

Up until this time the church had experienced persecution, attacks from outside the Body of Christ; but now it was experiencing problems from within.

Persecution had caused the Body of Christ to grow, but the new problems had a much different effect.

The conflict caused the church to stop growing for the first time since her inception.

Christians have been told to expect persecution.

In John 15:20, Jesus said, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you,” but should Christians also expect problems within the Body? Yes!

Conflict is present in every aspect of society.

We witness it during political debates, company board meetings, family reunions, and little league baseball games.

Wherever you find people, you will certainly find conflict.

It can be traced back to the simplest of beginnings and does not have a particular field, court, or arena.

Conflict can take place anywhere—even in church.

In the Philippian church—possibly Paul’s strongest and most spiritual one—the apostle pled with two sisters in the church to stop fighting.

Euodia and Syntyche may have been the culprits, but left unchecked, their bad relationship could have destroyed the harmony in the entire church (Philippians 4:1).

Sadly, conflict is a common occurrence in congregations of every denomination across America.

It happens to traditional, blended, and contemporary churches for a variety of reasons, with the capacity to reach extreme levels of intensity.

Its impact on a congregation can be devastating.

Relationships are damaged, friendships strained, and many decide to stop attending.

The church’s ministry and evangelism efforts are usually brought to a standstill, leaving a divided fellowship that has taken its eyes off the harvest and has become distracted from fulfilling the Great Commission.

Everybody Is Doing It

In a recent national survey of over 14,000 congregations, seventy five percent reported some level of conflict in the past five years.

While the conflict experienced in each of these churches might have varied greatly, it was still significant enough for church leaders to remember it, even after five years.

Conflict in a congregation can easily be compared to cancer in the human body.

Interestingly enough, like the ever-present potential of conflict in the body of Christ, every human body contains radical cancer cells.

These cancer cells flow through the body with the potential of developing into a deadly disease.

Conflict can start at any moment in any church.

We must continued to reach people, despite the possibly of your growth being destroyed.

Church conflict can kill your church growth.

Church unity is internal; church union, external. The former is the result of spiritual and organic growth; the latter is to a great extent the product of the organizing activity of men.

No one in this world has ever been saved and gone to heaven because he was poor. You can be as poor as a church mouse and still be as bad as a church rat.

There is all the difference in the world between just adding to the numbers on the roll of a church and the growth of the holy temple of the Lord.

We are living in an age which is statistically minded, and you can read reports of countries and places where almost everybody seems to be a church member.

But, alas, it does not follow that they are all being built into this holy temple of the Lord.

It does not follow of necessity that they are ‘lively’ stones, that they are a part of this growth.

The increase of the church is vital, not mechanical.

Men can add to the membership of a church, but God alone, can build, through the Holy Spirit, into the building of the church.

This growing unto an holy temple is a vital process.

If all the churches in the world became amalgamated, it would not make the slightest difference to the man in the street.

He is not outside the churches because the churches are disunited, he is outside because he likes his sin, because he is a sinner, because he is ignorant of spiritual realities.

He is no more interested in unity than the man in the moon!

A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up.

No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.

A disagreement over the color of carpet, program schedule, or a committee’s role can result in a dispute that reaches biblical proportions.