If This is Your Excuse Why Your Church Isn’t Growing, Please Stop Using It

Last updated on: August 7, 2017 at 6:51 am by Josh Daffern

If This is Your Excuse Why Your Church Isn’t Growing, Please Stop Using It 2017-08-07T06:51:30-06:00 Josh Daffern

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I used to hear a phrase used commonly in churches growing up. I have a sneaking suspicion this unhealthy and unbiblical phrase is still being used in plateaued or declining churches as some type of moral justification as to why they can’t seem to reach the teeming masses of humanity all around them. Tell me if you’ve heard this phrase before:

“God never called us to be successful, he called us to be faithful.”

I remember hearing that from numerous people and leaders in the church, usually as a justification of why they weren’t willing to change to reach the lost community around them. In their minds, if they simply huddled together with the few remaining souls inside the church walls and held on until they all died or Jesus came back, somehow that was a victory. It sounded right, it even almost sounded scriptural, so I went along with it.

But the Bible doesn’t preach that, in fact Jesus preaches the exact opposite. If you look in Matthew 25 you’ll find a very famous and familiar parable, the Parable of the Talents. In this story, a master goes away on a long journey and entrusts his wealth to three of his servants. To one he gives five bags of gold, to another two bags of gold, and to the last one bag of gold. All were expected to steward it will and give the master the increase when he returned. The first two servants did exactly that, they were fruitful with the responsibility given to them and they were rewarded accordingly,

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:21, 23

Notice the word ‘faithful’ is used by the master, but it’s not used in the way I’ve heard it used for years. The servant was faithful because he increased what was given to him. Our version of ‘faithful’ today is best described by the last servant, who was given one bag of gold and gave it back to the master upon his return with no increase. He didn’t squander it, he didn’t spend it, he didn’t lose it. He was ‘faithful’ to maintain it, but he wasn’t fruitful with it. What was the master’s response?

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant!'” Matthew 25:26

What I’ve come to realize is that the definition of ‘faithful’ I heard growing up was vastly different than Jesus’ definition of ‘faithful.’ Or, let me put it another way and restate it in light of Matthew 25:

God never called us to be faithful, he called us to be fruitful.

When Jesus returns, he won’t hand out praise and rewards to those who simply held on. He’s entrusted us with an incredible responsibility: to share the good news of salvation. If we want to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant” when he returns, it won’t just be because we were ‘faithful’ but because we were fruitful. So go out there and bear some fruit.

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