Church Growth: Unity leads to Teamwork leads to Church Growth

When asked to teach a class on church growth at a Bible college, I ordered several books on the topic to study. But by far the most important book on this topic is the Bible itself. One thing the Bible makes clear is that God Himself is the ultimate cause of church growth (1 Corithians 3:6-7). But how does He do this? He works through us.

I noticed a principle that is taught in the New Testament. It is perhaps most easily seen in Ephesians 4:1-16. The principle is that maintaining unity leads to teamwork which in turn leads to church growth. Those same three elements (Christian unity, teamwork, and building up the Body of Christ) are found in chapters 12-14 of 1 Corinthians. Two of the three elements (unity and teamwork) are found in Romans 12:3-18 and 1 Peter 4:8-11. Let’s look at how this works by looking at each of the three elements involved.

1. Maintaining Unity

As Christians we have a strong and deep foundation for unity. Paul lists seven “one’s” that we share.

There is one body and one Spirit

-- just as you were called to one hope at your calling--

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

(Ephesians 4:4-6 CSB17)

Wow. We should be really unified. However, it turns out that while we should be unified, we often are not. Our sin, and the sin of others, combined with the stress of our world, misunderstandings, differences between us, and the work of the devil, can all disrupt the Christian unity we should have. That’s why Paul tells us that unity is something that takes effort. In fact, it takes a lot of effort. And this truth is repeated throughout the New Testament.

I’m personally convinced that one reason many churches are not growing is that we are not working together as a team as well as we should. We aren’t working together as a team because we don’t have the level of unity we should. We don’t have the level of unity we should because we have not put in the hard work and effort to maintain peace and unity in our relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Instead of working hard to maintain unity, many people withdraw or put up barriers as soon as there is any problem. Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)!

Not only does unity require a lot of effort, it requires Christlike character. Before asking us to make every effort to maintain unity is vs. 4, Paul lists four character qualities that promote unity in vs. 2:

. . .  with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, (Eph. 4:2 CSB17)

1. humility

2. gentleness

3. patience

4. bearing with one another in love (we put up with things in other people that irritate us because we love them)

If you think about, it is easy to see how each of these characteristics helps to maintain unity while a lack of any of them can quickly lead to discord and division. A growth in these qualities will lead to more unity, which will lead to better teamwork, which leads to God growing His Church.

Let’s move on to the second major element: teamwork.

2. Teamwork

After urging us to make every effort to maintain unity, Paul talks about teamwork. Specifically, he talks about people with different gifts working together on one team. This same topic is discussed in greater detail in 1 Corinthians 12-14.

The Holy Spirit gives each Christian spiritual gifts. These gifts are skills/abilities that a person can generally do better and more easily than others who don’t have the same gift (sometimes others cannot  do the specific task at all). Many human endeavors succeed only when a group of people with different skills all work together in harmony towards a specific goal. When I served in the Navy, I saw a good example of this in the running of a submarine. We needed electricians, mechanics, reactor operators, chemists, cooks, people skilled in navigation, in radio communication, in sonar operation, men who knew how to steer the submarine, people who maintained its atmosphere, others who operated the various weapon systems, and leaders who coordinated all this activity and more. All these people with a wide variety of skills needed to work together in harmony in order for the submarine to carry out its mission. Some jobs weren’t as “exciting” as others, but every job was important and valuable.

In a similar way, in the church we need people who encourage others, people with skills in music, some who know how to operate sound systems, administrators who keep the bills paid, people who are gifted at working with children, teachers of various types, leaders, evangelists, and much more (see the various lists of gifts in the New Testament as examples, but not as exhaustive lists). When we work together as a team, God uses our joint efforts to grow His Church. When some team members withdraw or don’t do their work, or just don’t show up, the whole church suffers. And the growth of the church is then hindered.

Let’s talk about the growth of the church.

3. Church Growth

There are different types of church growth. In our passage in Ephesians 4, Paul emphasizes growth in Christian maturity. This involves learning God’s truth and becoming more and more like Jesus. In other passages, the Bible talks about numeric growth (Acts 2:41, Acts 2:47, Acts 5:14, Acts 6:1, Acts 6:7, 1 Corinthians 9:19). There is also a type of growth where the church is supporting work that leads to reaching people in new areas. All these types of growth are important and pleasing to God.

While there are seasons of pruning (John 15:2), and painful setbacks due to opposition and sin, in general it is God’s will that we bear fruit for His Kingdom. This requires teamwork, which requires unity. May God strengthen us to do the work of peacekeeping and empower us to work together in harmony to grow His Church for His glory!

In this post, we have focused on one major principle for church growth. There are more biblical principles for church growth, including (but not limited to):

1. Prayer!

2. Being a servant.

3. Bold, clear (but gentle and respectful) gospel proclamation.

4. Contextualization without compromising either gospel truth or biblical ethics.

5. Biblical leadership.

6. Perseverance and faith.

7. Suffering and sacrifice for the gospel.

Remember the promise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the ruler of the universe and King of Kings:

“I will build my church”

(Matt. 16:18 CSB17)

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .