Acts 6:1-15: Expanding the Base

The early church in Acts 6 experiences the same problem Moses encountered in Exodus 18. There is a limit to the number of people with which we can directly do ministry. Some say that number is 75, while others say it is really as low as 12 and that Jesus chose his 12 disciples for that reason. In this passage, the apostles, despite their best efforts, were having people drop through the cracks (the Grecian widows)and they were becoming so busy with the care of a growing number of people that they were unable to offer the preaching and teaching they needed to do. Notice that the people of the church were interpreting the lack of care for the Grecian widows as an ethnic slighting. While the Jewish believers may have been unintentionally insensitive to the needs of their Grecian members, the truth was the church was no longer structured appropriately for their size. If the apostles did not address this issue, the early church would have ceased to have sustained growth because it would have been limited to those the apostles could care for.

One of the things I learned early on in my growing ministry in Odessa, Texas was that if I didn't change the way I did leadership, I would end up undoing the growth we had and might even shrink the church to fit me. The truth is that most churches are structured about one or two sizes below what their active congregation needs. Mid-size churches (attendance 80-200)are structured like small ones (still trying to involve everyone in decision making and relying on two or three key leaders), while large churches (200-350) are structured like mid-size (still trying to work with just a few classes and two full-time staff with some part-time folk), and very large churches like St. Barnabas (350-800) act like a large one with key staff and a few key leaders in power with lots of people volunteering to assist. The truth is St. Barnabas, in order to be at our best, must further develop leaders of leaders so that our ministry can have its greatest impact (both on staff and as unpaid servants).

Notice the key qualification of those who were chosen: "Brothers, choose seven from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attentions to prayer and the ministry of the word." Spiritual walk with God and moral character in scripture are always higher qualifiers than giftedness, power of personality, or experience. Hopefully, we are calling forth and developing those who are a combination of great faith and giftedness. One of the great challenges of the 21st century mainline church is to develop a new generation of spirit-led and gifted leaders. We didn't do that very well in our last generation, so the church is short necessary gifted and spirit-filled personnel for staff positions: pastoral ministry, music ministry, youth ministry, children's ministry, evangelism, pastoral care, and Christian education. But the church has also not developed laity leadership for teachers, leadership on committees and task forces, care ministries, ministry beyond our walls, and so much more. As far as I am concerned this is job #1 for the United Methodist Church and for my own life.

Verse 7 give us the result:

"So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith."

Will you join me in calling people along side yourself who are filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom and show promising gifts for leadership? Or will we shrink the church to fit what we already are? Actually, that's what the mainline church has been doing for more than 40 years. It's time to turn that around, for the sake of the church and even more for the sake of our hurting and hungry world.