Ninety when she came. Forty last Sunday, and she counted, which she has started doing and did not used to.
Twelve years.
Nothing dramatic happened. That is what makes it so difficult to talk about. There was no scandal, nobody split off, there was no terrible appointment or bitter meeting. Two families moved for work. A great many people died, because a great many of them were old when she arrived. Some young ones went to the town and did not come back. Three stopped coming and nobody ever really found out why, and she has thought about all three of them at three in the morning more than once.
Ninety to forty, four or five at a time, over twelve years.
And here is what she noticed in the car park in October, which is the reason she is reading this.
She has started saying we are quite a small church now before anybody asks.
She gets it in first. At the meeting with the other churches, at a wedding, to a woman who moved into the road. She says it lightly, with a small laugh, and it is armor and she knows it.
She is ashamed of a place she loves, and she has never once said that to another human being, and she would be horrified if anybody in that hall knew.
God gave the increase
Sit down in the hall a minute, because Paul is dealing with a church that is arguing about which man built it, and his answer takes the whole thing away from both of them.
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.1 Corinthians 3:6
Three clauses, and everything hangs on which one the increase is in.
Paul planted. That is real work and it happened. Apollos watered. Also real, also happened, and neither man is being criticized anywhere in this chapter.
But God gave the increase.
The increase is in the third clause, and it is not in the first two, and it never was in the first two. Not for Paul, who is the most effective planter in the history of the church, and not for Apollos, who was so good at what he did that people took his name as a banner.
If the increase could be produced by the planting, Paul would have produced it, and he says here, in writing, that he did not.
Hear this in your own hall. You are not the reason there are forty, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts the increase in the third clause and leaves it there permanently, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has kept forty people coming through twelve years of watching that room get quieter.
Now let me name what the sentence in the car park is doing, because it is not disloyalty and disloyalty would be a terrible word for a woman who has stayed twelve years.
Getting it in first is how a person survives an expected verdict.
You have decided that the number means something about the place and about you, and rather than have somebody else say it, you say it yourself, lightly, with a laugh, and then it cannot be done to you.
That is not shame about the church. It is a defense built against an accusation that, as far as I can see, nobody has actually made in twelve years. The written word never made it, and the Spirit of God has kept forty people walking through that door the whole time.
Hear this too, and let it land in that hall. That church has not failed, and Scripture is what says so. What is written puts the increase entirely in the hands of God and never once in the hands of the people who planted and watered, and the Spirit of God has never made the size of a congregation the measure of its faithfulness.
And let me be plain, because this is exactly where articles like this go wrong. Nobody here is promising you that it will fill up again. That is not mine to promise and it is not anybody's, and a page that promises you growth is selling something.
And nobody here is telling you that small is better, which is the other lie in this territory and it is just as false. A full hall is a good thing and you would be glad of it and there is nothing wrong with wanting one.
The only thing being taken off you is the accounting.
So this week you name one thing out loud that has grown.
Not to make yourself feel better. Because it is true and nobody in twelve years has ever counted it, and unnamed things do not stay real.
Something has grown in that room. It always does in a place that has been through a long thinning. The forty know each other in a way the ninety did not. Somebody carries the ones who cannot carry themselves and nobody organized that. There is a young person there who would not be anywhere near a church if two particular women had not done something ordinary and repeated for four years.
Pick one. Say it to one person, in a sentence, out loud, this week.
And when the next occasion comes to get it in first, do not. Let the sentence go unsaid, and let somebody ask you the number if they want it, and answer it flatly like it is what it is, which is a number.
The written word puts the increase in the third clause and leaves it entirely with God, and the Holy Spirit has kept forty people coming through twelve years of a quietening room, so nothing about ninety to forty is a verdict on you or on one of them.
You have watched a great deal happen in twelve years. Almost none of it was countable, and the countable thing has been the only one you have looked at since October.
Declare this over yourself
Say these in the hall with the chairs still out. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit has kept those forty coming for twelve years according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of a count. Whether that room fills again or goes on quietening, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of a woman who has stayed twelve years.
- Number that has halved in twelve years, you are not a verdict on anybody in that room. Scripture says I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase, and the increase is in the third clause and it was never in the first two.
- Sentence I get in first before anybody asks, get out of my mouth, in the name of Jesus. The written word never made the size of a congregation the measure of its faithfulness, and the Spirit of God has kept forty people walking through that door for twelve years.
- Lord, You kept the increase in Your own hands and never once put it in the planter's, and Your Spirit has held that hall together through twelve years of quietening, exactly as it is written. I am naming one thing out loud this week that has grown and that nobody counts, and I am not getting it in first any more.
1 Corinthians 3:6
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
