Stories in the Rearview Mirror

“Stories in the Rearview Mirror:

Why I Believe These 70 Small Companies Are Greater Than the Fortune 500”

www.pmchurch.tv

• T4T
  • In the first 10 years of the movement, it grew from zero to 1.7 million baptized disciples in 150,000 churches—and is now growing now at a rate of 2,000 groups/churches per month!
  • Steve Smith and Ying Kai: “Today the movement might best be described as a sort of super church-planting movement. It has become so large that it is impossible to track all that is going on. But it is clear that an entire Asian region has been saturated with the kingdom of God, and the ripples of its effect are now touching people groups in other countries and continents.” (T4T—A Discipleship Re-Revolution Loc 211)
• ACTS
  •  Acts 2:46, 47—“So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from  to , they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
    • They together in their homes.
    • They ­­­ together in their homes.
  • Acts 5:42—“Day after day, in the temple courts and from to , they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
    • They   the Scripture together in their homes.
  • Acts 12:12—“[Peter] went to the   of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.”
    • They together in their homes.
  • Acts 20:20—“‘You know that I [Paul] have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from  to .’”
    • They together in their homes.
    • Romans 16:5/1 Corinthians 1:6—“Greet also the church that meets in [Pricilla and Aquilla’s] .”
    • Colossians 4:15—“Give my greetings to Nympha and the church in her .”
    • Philemon 1, 2—“To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, and the church that meets in your .”
  • The early church that grew by thousands, grew by .
• PIONEERS
  • “Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept and wept, till the day dawn. I mused in my own heart, saying, ‘My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my Christian experience. If this has proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth? Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden home city, no Paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hopes and expectation of these things?’ And thus we had something to grieve and weep over, if all our fondest hopes were lost. And as I said, we wept, till the day dawn.” (F. D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry, 247-248)
  • “Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly, and clearly, that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth . . . , that He for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary, and that He had a work to perform in the most holy before coming to this earth.” (Nichols 458)
  • Ellen Harmon: “I was visiting Mrs. Haines at Portland, a dear sister in Christ, whose heart was knit with mine; five of us, all women, were kneeling quietly at the family altar. While we were praying, the power of God came upon me as I had never felt it before.” (Life Sketches 64)
  • Ellen White: “The formation of small [groups] as a basis of Christian effort has been presented to me by One who cannot err. . . .  As they work and pray in Christ’s name, their numbers will ; for the Saviour says: ‘If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.’ Matthew 18:19” (Testimonies to the Church 7:21-22).
• TODAY
  • Timothy Keller: “We live in a culture in which the interests and desires of the individual take precedence over those of the family, group or community. . . . [But] there is no way you will be able to grow spiritually apart from a deep involvement in a   of other believers. You can’t live the Christian life without a  of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.” (Prodigal God 139-141)
  • Kenda Creasy Dean: “When nominally religious people experience the church as a community of people who embrace first and preach later, who celebrate life in those given up for dead, who err on the side of grace in matters of doctrine and politics so that no one, ever, must sit on the margins—we’re far less likely to lose people around the edges.” (Christianity Today March, 2014, p 25)
  • GROW Groups—a circle of new friends:
    • Who will share the same interest
    • Who will pray together
    • Who will study the Bible together
    • Who will party together (a social night)
    • Who will serve together (a service project)
    • Who will have one empty chair—to fill with a friend who needs Jesus
  • Keller: “You will never be able to [get to know Jesus better] by yourself. You must be deeply involved in the church, in Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness.” (142-143)

If you want to grow, you have to “group.”