Church Voices

Whenever a church begins to grow there’s always problems that come along with it. In Acts 6 we see this same thing happening. This is the part where the Grecian Christians are a bit miffed because Grecian widows aren’t being properly cared for. But, notice the very first verse notes, “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing…”. We shouldn’t be surprised when this happens, or acts like its some kind of horrible failing of the church today, it has always happened. But, we have the example of those who went before us to help to guide us.

What stands out to me the most is that this seems to be a problem of infrastructure. As churches grow the methods and procedures that worked for few people fail to work for large numbers of people. Notice what the disciples conclude: the teaching of the word of God is more important than waiting tables, and so, rather than doubling their efforts using the same procedure as before they devise a new infrastructure that is capable of handling the larger population of the church.

Next I notice that the disciples don’t bother getting bogged down in the details. They devise a strategy and toss it back to those who brought the complaint. Instead of debating who should be doing what they simply tell the Greek Christians, pick out seven who will take care of business. Whenever a complaint is brought in a church the people doing the complaining should be involved as part of the solution. Generally those who are troubled enough by an issue to raise it are those most interested in seeing the issue resolved. By involving them as part of the solution you are choosing those who will most energetically pursue the solution. And as it becomes known what your policy is, people who complain for the sake of complaining will stop complaining out of fear of being put to work.

Finally, notice the qualifications of those who were to be chosen. They were to be full of the Spirit, full of wisdom and men of good repute. These qualifications are 75% of the way to the qualifications for eldership. When it comes to appointing leaders to do something even as seemingly mundane as waiting tables we should have some pretty high standards.