Being Adopted

Most congregations of the church are more like orphanages than families. A small number of surrogate parents are employed to do the work of caring for too many children. God wants to set people in families (Psalm 68:5-6).

Elisha did twice as many mighty works as Elijah. This was majorly because Elisha was taken in as a son by Elijah. Elisha’s influence on the next generation was to lead an orphanage called a “school of the prophets.” Not much came out of the school. Elisha still had so much un-dispensed ministry in him when he died that his bones could raise the dead (2 Kings 13:20-21)

About 96% of the people we do manage to lead to Jesus in the United States are not connected in any real way to a congregation 4 years later. An immeasurable number of believers are still looking and hoping for a congregation beyond that time, but are called “church hoppers” because they cannot find a place to be set in a family.

Some ideas to measure or to encourage new believers to examine:

  • Find cultural matches to your music, clothing expectations, & way of talking.
  • Find relationships that are real, deep, and related to developing your ministry.
  • Find plurality of leadership, so that there is a plurality of gifts in leadership (a congregation that is led by an evangelist won’t have any ministry of pastoring; a congregation led by a teacher will have good messages, but no pastoring; a congregation led by a pastor will probably have boring sermons; a congregation that is led by several, diversely gifted people will have broad ministry to itself and to its community.