Growth Of The Organized And Evaluable Church

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Points to discuss

1.-Basics of a growth plan.
2.-Key processes of a growth plan.
3.-How to work in an organized way
4.-How to plan for the long term.
5.-How to evaluate a growth plan.
6.-The results of a growth plan.

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1.-Fundamentals of a growth plan.

Although the processes of a growth plan can be diverse according to the approach that each leader wants to give, it is good to look for a common and safe ground for all Christians.

This safe land where to plant, work, irrigate, care for and finally harvest are the commands of Jesus.

If we can define the key processes based on the clear commands of Jesus in which all Christians agree and more clearly in the mandates of Jesus related to his church we will be working in obedience and it is in that obedience relationship in which He promises to manifest himself to us (John 14.21-22) and bless our work.It is important to differentiate processes of habits and attitudes that Jesus commands us to practice in our Christian life since habits and attitudes are part of the processes but can be practiced individually.In this case we focus on processes that are relevant in the life of the church and can help generate results both in the church in your city and in the spread of the gospel in other places.

What is a process?

The word Process has Latin origin, from the word processus, from procedere, which comes from pro (forwards) and cere (to fall, to walk), which means progress, advance, march, go forward, go towards a certain goal.Process is the succession of acts or actions performed in a certain order, which are directed to a point or purpose.

A clarification for those who think that dealing with HOW THE CHURCH GROWS is not an issue that should concern us. From the words of Jesus in Matthew 6.28 where He says "Consider the lilies HOW they GROW" is that we assume that Jesus is interested in us to address the issue of HOW THE CHURCH GROWS and assume that there is a part of the Work of God that He has placed in our hands to perform.

The foundations of a growth plan must be drawn from the word of God.
Jesus himself was in charge of explaining how his kingdom was going to grow, what was the part of man in this extension and what was the part of God.
One of Jesus' passages on growth is Matthew 6.28.
Analyzing these simple words of Jesus is that we understand the following:
Consider: That is, it encourages us to examine accurately, learn carefully, investigate with dedication.
The lilies: They contain the secret of life given by God, man has not created anything with these characteristics.
How they grow: When we know how the things that God has created grow, we can apply that knowledge to the church, since it is also a creation of God.

Nothing is more certain than a growth plan based on the words of Jesus in Mark 4.26-29 where He explains with simplicity and clarity how the Kingdom of God grows. In this passage we see what is the task of man in the growth of the kingdom.

According to this passage man can and should.
Drop the seed (sow). When the fact of regularly sowing the seed of the Word of God in people actually happens, we can begin to dream of participating in the work of the kingdom of God.
Sleep rest). The clear separation of our regular rest time will give us the natural renewal that our body, mind and spirit need to perform a serious, constant and long-term work
Get up (be constant). We must add constancy to our work. If we keep changing our task and vision, we will not be able to achieve the achievements that come from working in the long term.
Put the sickle (harvest). The harvest marks the appropriate time where direct ways of collecting the result of all the work carried out are necessary.
So we have the planting, the rest, the perseverance and the harvest as elements of a process that according to the words of Jesus exemplify the simple and natural functioning of the kingdom of God.

What is the part of God?

That the seed of fruit is a result that totally concerns God. (1st Corinthians 3.6). "De suyo" (of himself - automatically). "Bear fruit" (life grows out of sight) clearly indicate that God is the one who gives the growth and this is his part in the growth of his kingdom.

We call this the "work of God."

It is evident that we are facing a problem here because we are culturally accustomed to working in the church based on events and not on processes.

2.-Key processes of a growth plan.

Following this idea you can add in your work plan all the processes that Jesus invites us to practice but here we share 5 that we may lack.

Values ​​Process
Jesus Command: Love God and people.

Description: This process involves demonstrating with actions our love for God speaking to him, listening to him and obeying him every day and loving through actions to people.
Biblical basis: Matthew 22.37-39
Check question to see if you and your church are living this process:
Do you show your love for God every day by meeting Him to talk to Him, listen to Him, and obey Him?
Do you show your love to people by approaching them and loving them through some action?

Personal Evangelism Process

Command of Jesus: Preach the Gospel to every person.
Biblical basis: Mark 16.15
Description: This process involves sharing the message of the gospel with clarity, love and in a complete way to those who still do not believe.
Check question to see if you and your church experience this process: Have you shared the gospel with anyone during the past week?

Personal Discipleship Process

Mandate of Jesus: Make disciples of all nations.
Biblical basis: Matthew 28.19-20
Description: This process involves following the example of Jesus in personally forming disciples.
Check question to see if you and your church are living this process:
Have you personally discipled someone in the last week?
Process of cells or small groups
Jesus' Command: Where two or three are, I am in their midst.
Biblical basis: Matthew 18.20
Description: This process involves placing the members in an informal, personal and participatory place where they build the body of Christ through their own activity while they are attached to the body.

Check question to see if you and your church are living this process:
Do your members have a personal, informal and participatory place to live the life of the church in the neighborhood where they live?

Process of Missions

Mandate of Jesus:
Biblical basis: Facts 1.8
Description: This process involves bringing awareness to the members of the worldwide reach that Jesus dreamed of for his church until guiding them to a concrete and regular commitment of their lives (pray, offer, go) for the World Missionary Work.
Check question to see if you and your church are living this process:
Do the members of our church pray, offer and go to the mission field to fulfill the command to "go to the ends of the earth?
Putting these 5 processes into operation ensures that our church is carrying out these actions:

Meeting with God personally
Speak with God
Listen to God
Love the people around us through actions.
Preach the gospel.
Make new disciples.
Build one another in small groups.
Pray for the missions.
Offer for missions.
Plant new churches.
Train and send missionaries.
You can be sure that if a group of members of your church perform these actions on a regular and constant basis your church will begin to grow.

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3.-How to work in an organized way.

One of the characteristics of God is order. The Bible teaches that God is a God of order and that means that we can give an order to each step we are going to take so that the whole church can understand how we are going to work and get involved in the work of the kingdom.
Many times the leaders commented that the members do not get involved in the work of the church but one of the reasons is that the members do not know very well what is trying to do the Apostle.
This lack of direction, objectives and order result in the inertia of the members and the lack of involvement in the work.
When members know where their church is going and what goals they want to reach, they can locate and get involved in the task.
For them to do so they must breathe ORDER.

Order and organization involve 4 steps:

Define our objectives
Develop an action plan to achieve them.
Run that action plan every week.
Evaluate regularly to know how we move forward and make improvements.
This requires taking time to plan and make decisions in prayer with our leadership.

Until you have these 4 steps in writing you will not be able to work in an organized way in a growth plan. It can be organized now but not to grow.
Organization does not mean growth. A cemetery may be organized but it has no life.
Here when we talk about organization we talk about what organization only exists when there are people capable of communicating and who are willing to act together to obtain a COMMON OBJECTIVE.
Paul did a tremendous job of extending the kingdom of God because he worked in an orderly manner defining his goals in prayer, working with his team, executing his action plans, constantly evaluating his work and persevering to reach his goals.
Set up the 4 steps to organize yourself and think about how to implement in practice each of the processes you want to develop.
It is evident that we will not be able to do this in a month and this is where we need to go on to explain how we can plan for the long term.

4.-How to plan for the long term.

We have given examples of processes to be implemented:
You must define the list of processes you want to work in your church.

and a simple way to organize them:

Define our objectives
Develop an action plan to achieve them.
Run that action plan every week.
Evaluate regularly to know how we move forward and make improvements.
You must define how you will organize or give order to your work plan.
Once you have defined these two things you have the elements to plan for the long term.
One way to plan for the long term is this:

PRIORITIES: Defining priorities means deciding in what order I will implement the processes.
TASKS: Define what tasks we must perform to implement the processes.
TIMES: Define date and time in which we perform the tasks. (Calendar)
COMMUNICATION: Define how we communicate the plan to all those involved.
EVALUATION: Define how regularly the team will meet to evaluate the plan.

How to eat an elephant

To understand how a plan is developed in the long term I use the figure of eating the elephant.
You can not eat an elephant in a day. To do this you must cut the elephant into small parts that can enter through your mouth. Then you will have to determine how many parts you can eat in a day and how many days a week you will eat an elephant and you will just know how long it will take you to reach the goal of eating an elephant.
The long-term plan is to distribute the large group of tasks to be carried out in the time they can carry them out. This will generate a work order to develop each of the processes they wish to implement.

How did Jesus and Paul do so much?
They carried out small tasks each day that they had previously planned under the guidance of the Father and that they executed in the power of the Holy Spirit and generated in the long term the fruit of fruitful ministries that left a legacy to those who followed.
Once you have been able to place all the tasks that must be done in the calendar it is time to communicate it to all those involved and start the EXECUTION stage.

How do we know that we are on track to achieve our goals?
We do not know unless we evaluate.
The one who does not evaluate / measure is like the one who does not see.
If you do not measure your blood pressure one day you will end up in the hospital or worse.
If you do not measure the car oil the car melts.
If you do not measure you do not know and if you do not know you can not improve.
That is why when we enter the execution stage of our plan and, without interrupting the tasks we have defined, we must implement the evaluation.

5.-How to evaluate a growth plan.

The evaluation is not to control the team members but to help us know if we are making progress in the project.
The simplest way to evaluate the tasks of our work plan is to define a time in which those involved sit down and TOGETHER EVALUATE 3 things:

How are we doing?
What can we improve?
How we feel doing it.
What do we do at the evaluation meeting?
We celebrate the triumphs.
We identify and solve obstacles.
We edify each other to move forward.
We see ourselves as a team and remember our COMMON OBJECTIVE.
Evaluation times.
If we perform weekly tasks we evaluate weekly.
If we perform tasks every two weeks we evaluate every two weeks.
If we perform monthly tasks, we evaluate monthly.

In all cases we hold an annual meeting to evaluate how we have progressed towards the COMMON OBJECTIVE.
The evaluation is the tool that will allow us to improve the plan each week and move forward to reach the goal that God has placed for our church.

6.-The results of a growth plan.

The results of a growth plan are many since not only can a COMMON OBJECTIVE be achieved.

Obedience to the commands of the Lord Jesus.
Joy of working as a body for a common goal.
Have a sense of purpose in our church.
Order for the ministerial task of our members. This generates time for family spaces and personal improvement in the members.

Bibliographic references

Blanchard, Ken & Phil Hodges. Un líder como Jesús. Nashville: Grupo Nelson, 2006. ISDN: 9780881139976

Martínez, Juan & Mark Branson. Iglesias, culturas y liderazgo: Una teología práctica para congregaciones y etnias. Miami: Editorial Vida, 2013. ASIN: B008EGREMO

Stanley, Andy. Amplio y profundo: Edificando Iglesias de las que todos quisieran ser parte. Miami: Editorial Vida, 2013. ISBN: 0829765409

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