Jesus in the Gospel of John handed to His disciples the key to creating a dynamic church—one that exemplifies the culture of heaven on earth. He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). The attractive force of this magnet called love is far stronger than anything known to man. Any environment that emulates the Christ-like qualities of love makes for itself rooms that welcome the masses. An environment void of prejudices, condemnation, hypocrisy, backstabbers, gossipers, complainers, and the rest always attracts people. The key to any church growth is love and it must begin at the core and soul of each individual. The historical roots of Church growth movement defines church growth as “that discipline which investigates the nature, expansion, planting, multiplication, function and health of Christian churches as they relate to the effective implementation of God’s commission to ‘make disciples of all people’ (Matt. 28:18-20).”[1] There are three (3) ways that a church can grow: (1) biological growth—as church members give birth to children; (2) transfer growth (or church hopping)—as people moves from one church to the other; and (3) Conversion growth—people get saved and begin to fellowship with other believers. The first two are quite ideal but Christendom growth is mostly attributed to conversion. This is what happened in the early church and if we want understand the how of growth we ought to visit it. Those came to believe the gospel “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42-47). The brotherhood of men, a heaven like community where unity, friendship, hospitality, joy and laughter, kindness, and etc. abided. We can have all the gadgets, strategies and plans of all of sort but if we neglect the number one basic rule of love in action, then we’ve truly lost the purpose of why we are on earth in the first place. If we want the Lord to bring addition and multiplication then the love shed abroad within us by the Holy Spirit needs to be on display.
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