12+1 Core Values: Growth Resulting | Pr Stephen Kong

You're listening to a message to go from X Church.

We hope this message will light up your day.

What to do when the growth stops?

Now, when growth stops, first of all, we cannot, we

must not choose to normalize it. You know, don't take on,

you know, a self-defeat stance. You know, sometimes people will

say to me, oh, I'm like that. You know, it's

because God made me that way. Oh, Don't put the

blame on God.

You know? Some people will say, they will say that,

you know? I'm like that. I can't change that. No offense.

I tell you what, we can. With the power of

God and the help of the Holy Spirit, we can change.

He can change us if we choose to submit and

we choose to obey. So when growth stops and stagnation happens,

it's not a season to accept. It's not a place

for us to say, look, I've stopped growing and I

accept that, you know, and I choose to remain that way. No.

We never... Stop growing.

You know, stagnation is a signal for us to pay

attention that something is wrong and it needs fixing. You know,

it's an indicator. It's not a final verdict. So if

you ever feel that you are slowing down and your

growth is stopping, you know, come on, let's stand up again.

Let's rise up again.

Never say, you know, don't be too quick to say

no to learning something new. You know, I always find

that in my workplace today, I'm always learning something new.

You know, I was, funnily enough, just two days ago,

early in the morning, I received a call from my office,

saying they need help. This particular factory bought my product,

and they needed some training. And I'm like, there's no

one in our office that is familiar with this product. Actually,

I'm familiar with it, but not an expert in it.

But I took up the challenge to go and do

this training, and I went to the factory. They called

the whole office to come, 10 people. I'm like, Lord,

help me. I don't know what I'm saying, half the time.

You know, I just got to finish this session. And

after I finished the session, the training session I gave,

I called my boss, eh, I need help. I need

to make sure that I said the right things. You know,

and so there were some right and some wrong. So

I had to go and correct it. I had to

go and tell them, eh, so sorry, I think this

is the right way. You know, we should do this.

This is better. You know, and so never stop learning.

You know, I took up the challenge to go and

do a training for something that I wasn't fully an

expert in either. Because none of my colleagues would take

it up. And because I carried the title as a

technical manager, so I had to do it. I had

no one else to point the finger to except myself.

So I took up the challenge and did it. And

so I prayed that we would never stop growing. Come

on church, never stop growing. Never stop learning. Never stop

saying yes to God. And so I'm back to the question.

What happens if growth stops? I told you, I started

by saying that growth is a result of health.

Good health, right?

And so if growth stops, we simply just need to

look back at the health. What happened to our health, right?

And being healthy is simply going back to basics.

It's not new. It's not rocket science. You know, ask ourselves,

where did it all go wrong? You know? if you

haven't been well lately, maybe it's something to do with

your diet. Right? So check.

Maybe it's something to do with your lifestyle. So check

and find out what went wrong. You know, go back

to what went wrong so that we can fix it

and go back to basics. And so this is what

Pastor Kenneth does, you know, when he visits our churches

around the world. You know, sometimes he hears a report

that the church hasn't been growing.

Okay?

The church hasn't been growing. They have been stagnating. And

when he goes down, he goes there, he flies over,

wherever it is, and he sits down with the leaders,

he doesn't come up with some new marketing plan. He

doesn't come up with a new budget to buy a

sound system. He doesn't change the venue. He doesn't change

the chairs.

He doesn't, no, none of it. You know what he does?

He simply goes back to the basic of what church

was meant to be. And at X Church, we are

very familiar with these five Ws. Have you heard of

it before? Worship, word, works. Did I miss it? Worship, word, warm,

works and witness.

Okay, very long. We didn't revisit that. Right? These are

the five W's that you and I should be familiar

in church.

That's why we're going through the 12 plus 1 core

values right now.

Right?

And so when growth stops, we just simply need to

go back to the basics. Ask ourselves, Is the church

doing well in their prayer? Is the church doing well

in their devotion? Is the church doing well in their worship?

Is the church doing well? It's as simple as that.

Just go back to the basics. And we can get

all the basics right again. We'll be back at a

healthy place. And then we will grow. Because when we

look at this passage where this key verse was taken from,

Acts chapter 2, verse 40 to 47. Okay, can I

Acts 2:40–47

encourage you to turn to this passage together with me?

Acts chapter 2, verse 40 to 47. Now, I'm not

Acts 2:40–47

sure about your Bible, but in my NKJV version of

my Bible, the title of the passage actually writes, A

Vital Church Grows.

Okay?

So now let's look at some of the ingredients that

causes the church to grow.

Okay?

Okay?

Acts chapter 2, verse 40 to 47. I don't think

Acts 2:40–47

so I have the slide. I don't think so I

have the verse, but I have the slide. You can

put the slide. There's a slide there. Okay, and as

I read. Verse 40 says, And with many other words

he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be safe from this

perverse generation. Maybe you can put on the other side,

the one that got the bullet points.

Okay, the bullet points. Then those who gladly received.

His word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls

were added to them.

And they continued, Steadfastly. Okay, there you go. You can see.

Some of the ingredients, they were new souls, right? And

they continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. That's another ingredient, right?

The word of God and fellowship. In the breaking of bread,

that's communion. Remembering the Lord in prayers.

Can you see?

All the ingredients that causes the church to grow. Then

fear came upon every soul, the fear of God. And

many signs and wonders were done through the apostles. And

now all who believed were together.

There was togetherness. There was unity.

And they were all in one accord. He says they

had all things in common. That's community. And so their

possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone

had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the

temple and breaking bread. Again, communists coming in again. Breaking

bread from house to house. They ate their food with

gladness and simplicity of heart.

Wow.

I like it when I said, right, that going back

to basics is simply, you know, being healthy is simply

going back to basics.

Very simple.

And yet, the church had gladness and simplicity of heart.

Praising God and having favour with all the people.

And listen to this.

And the Lord added to the church daily those who

were being saved. So this verse says, and the Lord added.

When you see a word and, that means we need

to go back.

It's a result, right? Something happened before.

So we read every other verse before and you see

all the ingredients of church growth.

And friends, I don't even find marketing in it, no? Yeah.

Today our church, we still try to be relevant.

We still try to reach you know, a special group

of people who maybe will never walk into church. Maybe

they'll bump to us online, on marketing, through marketing. Sure,

I understand that. You will find that we don't focus

on that. You know, it's one of the means of

reaching the people, but it should not be our ultimate focus.

Everything I just read and listed there should be our focus.

And you will find that most of the 12 plus

1 core values was taken from here.

Right? We just said it.

Faith-generating, word-faithful, discipleship-focused, what else, unity-guarded, I'm trying to remember, community-evaluated, I.

Won't be faithful, I said it already, right? You'll find

it's all here. Prayer-powered. It's all found here.

This is the ingredient to church growth, which is simply

making sure that we are healthy and we get the

basics right.

So don't over-complicate things.

Keep it simple. As long as we keep the main

thing The main thing. So my question to you and

to me today is this.

Are you healthy? Are you healthy?

In our body, in our mind, our soul, our spirit.

You know, are you at peace with yourself? Even with

your body, with who God has created you. Because sometimes

people can struggle and they tell me that They struggle

just with their own self-identity.

You know, they are not at peace with themselves.

When you look at yourself, when you look at yourself

at the mirror, you know, do you smile at yourself?

Or do you go away sad? I want to encourage you.

All of us, you and I, we are fearfully and

wonderfully made in the image of God.

Somebody say amen. So may we be healthy in our body.

You know, yes, we may go through sicknesses and I

pray the Lord will heal you. You know, we go

through our ups and downs. As we age, our body

is wasting away. It is, naturally, as we age. You know,

but the question is, are you healthy in your body?

You know, are you at peace with yourself? You know,

and in your mind, do you have healthy thoughts? Do

you have good thoughts in your mind? Or every other day,

you're resting to wake up. You know, maybe you hate

your job. Maybe you want to Or you hate what

you're studying. I hope none of you are in that place,

you know. You wake up and you're asking yourself, why

did I study psychology? Or why did I study engineering?

I should have chosen business. The grass is always greener

on the other side. Or why are you in Malaysia?

Ouch.

You know.

So are you healthy? Are you healthy in your mind?

Or every day you're wrestling? So again, I'm going back

to basics. Simple questions. Ask yourself, do you have good

thoughts in your mind? Are you thinking positively or negatively?

Come on.

And in your heart, your soul, your spirit, are we

constantly yearning for the Lord? Or are we just looking

for things in this earth that will pass? So that's

a question for you and for me. Are you healthy? Because,

may I suggest to you, that if we are healthy

as individuals, we will then be able to contribute to

the church, to the health of the church by saying yes.

Because we will go for missions, we will evangelize, we

will come for prayer, we will serve in homes.

Can you see it's a continuous effect, right?

If you are healthy as an individual, your contribution to

the church will be healthy and hence the church will

be healthy and hence the church will continue to grow.

Amen?

So may we be first healthy ourselves. You know, because

a healthy church, a happy church, is a growing church.

Amen?

And when I talk about growth, as I close, we're

not just talking about numbers. You know, I remember Pastor

Kenneth was sharing before that one good metric, or one

good measure that the world uses to measure the success

of a church is to measure the number of members

they have in the church. Some churches have thousands, tens

of thousands. hundreds of thousands, millions. But may I suggest

to you that sometimes numbers are not, it's not really

the best metrics to.

Measure health in church or growth in church.

Because we're not just after the numbers at the end

of the day. You know, we are after quality more

than just quantity. You know, because if you're measuring just numbers,

did you know in Ex-Seminyi, every year we graduate about

10 to 15 students who goes back home to their

home country, hometown. And if you just do a simple math, right,

in 10 years, right, we would have, if none of

them went back home, we probably have 150. Plus how

many we have today? 50, we have 200. But are

we just looking at the numbers? Numbers will tell you

a story, but we're not just looking at the numbers.

Because I believe with all my heart that many of

the students that walked through our path, came through our doors,

have gone back home to their home churches, back in Indonesia,

in Singapore, wherever you name it, in every other KK,

East Malaysia, you know, over the seas, I know Mauritius, Tanzania.

Africa, you name it, right?

They've gone back to their home country, their home places,

their hometowns, and they will continue to be a blessing there.

It's never just about the numbers. And we are not

just looking at the numbers. Even though I understand the

numbers represent souls.

It represents life.

Look around you. Look at the empty chairs. Every single

empty chair you see today represents a life. Represents a

soul that needs to hear about the saving grace of

Jesus Christ. I understand that. But we are not just

about the numbers. Because I want to share with you

a quick story. In our church in the UK, I

think it's in... Worcester, if I'm not wrong. Forgive me

if I got the plan wrong. But one of this

church plant only had about 10 people. 10 people. And

for a good number of years, they only had 10 people.

And eventually, there were some of the students who went

back home, I think to Vietnam or some other country.

And their faith was revived in the church in Worcester.

And he actually came back and told us that, thank

you for your church of 10 people. Because my faith

was revived there. And now back home, she's serving actively.

And in fact, there was another story of two guys

who was on the way, you know, to commit suicide

at a bridge down the road and bump into our

church of 10.

And they said, you saved my life.

Because that day, they did not give up their life

because they found church. They heard some people singing up somewhere.

You know, I don't know the full story, but that's

all I heard. You know, you could have just saved

two lives from suicidal. And yet, did you know the

church did a lot? So it's not just about the numbers.

I want to encourage you. It's not just about the numbers.

Because even with 10 people, we can do a lot.

For the Lord. Amen?

Because with every growth of every individual that goes back,

much more can happen out of it. The Bible didn't

tell us or teach us to make converts. told us

to make disciples. Jesus didn't say, go into the world

and make converts. He says, go and make.

Disciples. Amen? Hallelujah.

I'm going to invite the worship team to come even

as I close. So I'm going to say to us,

even as I close, that truly, as a church, we

want our church to continue to be growing.

Yes, we do.

As every parent, as every leader of a company or

church in your family, yes, we do. We always want growth.

I don't think so there's anyone who would say that

I don't want to see growth. You know, all of

us would want to see growth. You know, and as

a church, we too want to see growth. We want

to see growth not just in our numbers, but really

in our spirit. in our devotion, in our spiritual walk

with the Lord. That is what we truly want to

see growth in. We want to see growth in our discipleship.

We want to see growth in people living victoriously for

the Lord. And the numbers will come automatically. And so,

as I close with this last verse, Philippians chapter.

1, verse 3 to 6.

Paul is saying, I thank my God upon every remembrance

of you always in every prayer of mine making requests

for you all with joy for your fellowship in the

gospel from the first day until now being confident of

this very thing that he who has begun a good

work in you will complete it until the day of

Jesus Christ amen.

Truly as what Paul is saying Basically, it is God.

It is God who has begun a good work, you

and in me, in our church, in our families, in

our nation. And as long as we are faithful, as

long as we continue to stay true to the Word,

as long as we stay true to Him, our focus

is on Him, as we fix our eyes on Him,

the author and finisher of our faith, God who began

a good work, He will bring it to completion. And

we are co-workers in the kingdom of God as we

work together with Him, as God partners with us and

we with Him.

I wonder how many of us here will say, yes, Lord,

count me in.

Yes, Lord.

I want to serve you. Yes, Lord. I want to

be part of your work. Yes, Lord. I want to

be part of helping my church to be healthy. Yes, Lord.

Help me, Lord.

And maybe for some of us, We are also in

a place whereby we may not be healthy ourselves. You

can also say, Lord, help me. Find areas in my life.

Search my heart, O God, and try me.

Search my heart.

Find areas in my life, O God, that have gone astray.

Find areas in my life that maybe I have taken

control over. Maybe there are areas that we have said, Lord,

this is mine.

You can't touch this. There could be an idol in

our lives. God is saying, come back to me. Come back.

And it's all about Him.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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is going to be a good week ahead for you.

God bless.