The BIG small Church

Sermon preached at Gospel Light Christian Church, Singapore
by Pastor Dr Paul Choo
on 02 Apr 2006

GLCC Distinctives – The BIG small Church (2/4/06)

Introduction: There is such a disparity between the Christians that we read of in the Bible and the Christians that we ourselves are, that we wonder whether we are really Christians. Similarly, there is such a disparity between the churches that we read of in the Bible and the churches of today, that we wonder if today’s churches are really churches at all!

Though we all know that God is our Father, and that He designed His church to be a spiritual family of brothers and sisters (Romans 8:15,16), yet present-day statistics reveal that 40-50% of church members do not bother to know the others in their churches. And though we know that the Holy Spirit lives in each believer and that we all have at least one spiritual gift, yet present-day statistics reveal that only 10-15% of Christians are engaged in tasks that keep the church functioning.

Remembering that the role-model for GLCC is the church in the book of Acts, let us examine, from the Bible, an important reason why today’s church is so different from what the church should be.

The BIG small Church: Three thousand Christians were added to the early church after Peter’s Spirit-empowered preaching (Acts 2:41). It is interesting that with the addition of 3000 people, the Apostles did not worry about finding a building to accommodate this large number of people.

This 3000-member church worshipped in a “porch” of the Temple (Acts 2:46). However, they were not just one big church that worshipped together and then dispersed after that. We are told that after the service was over, they went to different houses for fellowship (Acts 2:46).

Shortly after this, the Jewish religious leaders persecuted them (Acts 5:17,18). After the martyrdom of Stephen, they were so violently persecuted that they had to flee from Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). Thereafter, the Christians suffered persecution from the Jews and from the Romans. In other words, they were not able to worship in large public buildings. In fact, there is no mention of a “church building” in the entire New Testament. Whenever the word “church” is mentioned in the Bible it refers to people not buildings (1Peter 2:5, 1Corinthians 3:9 NKJV). In the Bible, the only buildings used to accommodate Christians were houses (Romans 16:5, 1Corinthians 16:19, Colossians 4:15, Philemon 2). As most houses in those days were small, we can assume that the average house-church gathering did not exceed 10 to 15 people. This does not mean that each house-church group was independent and isolated. For example, Paul writes to the “ church of God which is at Corinth” (1Corinthians 1:2), though the Corinthian Christians probably worshipped in many different houses. In other words, though they worshipped in small groups, they considered themselves as part of a larger body of believers – and met and worshipped together whenever there was opportunity to do so.

The largest and fastest growing church in the world today is the Chinese church. Most of them worship in small house-church groups (of less than 20 members), yet they are networked into larger groups (of thousands). This biblical model also seems to be the most suitable model for the countries around us (eg. Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Burma).

Small is Beautiful: Since God is our Father and we are His children, the church is first and foremost a family, not an organization or institution. For organizations or institutions, it is generally true that the bigger the better. However, for families there is an optimal size beyond which it is very difficult to preserve the family spirit and enjoy the benefits of family life.

The early church preserved the family spirit by meeting in small intimate fellowship groups (Acts 2:42, 46). They understood the importance of intimate fellowship and realized that this type of intimate fellowship can only come about through regular intimate contact. They understood that to have real fellowship and brotherhood, they needed to eat together in each others’ homes.

The early church realized that as brothers, they needed to encourage each other and help each other (1Thessalonians 5:11-15, Ephesians 4:16 NKJV). Of course, this kind of mutual brotherly help can only take place in an intimate family setting – not in a 1000 member church that meets once a week at a school auditorium. We know that learning of life-skills (eg. how to cope with failures, how to cope with challenges, how to communicate with our family members, how to pray, how to evangelize) are best learned informally through watching real life demonstrations, rather than attending formal sermons or classes. Small groups can be people-centered, but large groups tend to be program centered. This is the reason why God has divided the human race into small families (cf. His other creatures which multiply in large numbers because they perform by instinct).

The early church knew that Christianity is practical not theoretical (John 13:4-7). They knew that being a Christian was more than merely understanding certain doctrines and subscribing to that set of doctrines. To them Christianity was a whole new life-style of doing and serving. They knew that they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 3:16) and that they were each spiritually gifted (Romans 12:6-13) for ministry. Needless to say, these spiritual gifts could best be used in a family setting rather than in a large church setting.

Conclusion: The average Sunday attendance in GLCC is over 1000. We thank God for bringing in each and every Gospeliter. However, we realize that unless we follow the biblical church model of being both big and small at the same time, we will be a Christianized organization/institution, not a church. Therefore, GLCC is a churchof Spiritual Families (SF’s), not a church with Spiritual Families. Every Gospeliter must belong to a SF. And every SF must understand its role and fulfill its role as a spiritual family – where Sfers can grow spiritually and minister to one another. In GLCC we know that unless we build God’s House in God’s way, we cannot expect God to bless us.