A Different Look at Progress

By William R. Cunningham
Specifically for the New Saint John Baptist Church

Introduction

How do you measure progress?  New Saint John Baptist Church has been in existence for 75 years, but what do you have to show for it?  You have just experienced a nasty split of the church and there are only a few people left.  I used to attend New Saint John as a child and I know that it is far less populated now than it was then.

If you looked around or considered the number of people that attend on Sunday mornings to measure the effectiveness of the church or if you looked around to see only a few people to use that as a measure for what you have to show for your seventy five years of existence then you are not looking at things in a constructive manner.  The effectiveness of your ministry cannot be determined by the number of people in attendance on a particular Sunday morning.

New Saint John has influenced many people during the seventy five years that it has existed.  There were ups and downs.  There were prosperous times and there were less prosperous times.  There were times when the church was packed with people and there were times when a visitor has a pick of seats.  However, should we use any instant in time to measure the progress of the church?  I think not.  I believe that the progress of the church cannot be measured at an instant of time, but instead is seen through the effectiveness, influence, and fruit of the church.

I for one am a product of New Saint John Baptist Church.  I am not perfect, but at the same time I remain true to God and true to the ministry.  However, most of all the things that I have gained while at New Saint John remains with me to this day.  Through my cousin, Caroline, I became familiar with performing on stage, playing a musical instrument, memorization, crafts and art, recital, serving (as an usher), and the joy of the church family.  I also learned how to study the Bible while at New Saint John and was given the opportunity to practice presenting lessons and the like thanks to Pastor Effie Blumentoe and Reverend Mattie Waters.  I gained a lot from New Saint John and much of what I am today is due to that church.

Pursuing the Truth Ministries is also a byproduct of New Saint John in many ways.  My ministry experience began at New Saint John and grew to manifest itself as Pursuing the Truth Ministries.  I began teaching in other churches and even was head of education in three churches including New Saint John.  I was church administrator at Impacting Your World Christian Center and eventually went on to pastor Oasis Christian Fellowship by request of Pastor Tony Angelo.  The point is that the ministry that God has given me began with what I learned at New Saint John.

Pursuing the Truth Ministries now affect people all over the world.  We interact with people from China, Singapore, Africa, Canada, India, Australia, and all over the United States.  Pursuing the Truth Ministries proclaim liberty to those who are bound by religion so that they would experience an intimate and personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  However, all of this innocently enough began while I was at New Saint John. 

I often think of the person that led Billy Graham to Christ.  Of course Billy Graham is an internationally known and respected minister of the gospel.  However, he had his start somewhere.  He learned about God somewhere.  Millions of people are affected by him.  What can we say about the church he attended as a child or the person that ministered the gospel to him?

Pursuing The Truth Ministries gets over 8000 visitors to its website each month and it increases every month.  I am waiting to celebrate when we hit the 10,000 visitor mark!  Pursuing the Truth Ministries exists to expose people to the truth so the more people we come into contact with then the more people that will hopefully be exposed to the truth and get that much closer to liberation.  Again, all of this is a product of New Saint John Baptist Church.

There were times when I was discouraged and wanted to just stop.  There were times when I just wanted to find a church and be a quiet member attending every Sunday like most other people.  I vowed that I wouldn’t get involved with teaching or any other ministry responsibilities.  However, that proved to be impossible because ministry was in me and that appears to be where God wants me to be.

Also, consider the people that you have influenced over the years who have never become members of the church.  Think of the people that you have ministered to in normal conversations and didn’t realize it.  You have touched many people during the course of seventy five years, but the Sunday numbers do not show that. 

New Saint John is a tool that God uses for ministry.  If you don’t think of yourself that way then you are doing yourself a disservice and I believe you have missed the mark for your purpose.  A church’s existence is not to gain members, but rather to minister.  You exist to minister.  You come together on Sundays to worship together and to encourage and edify each other.   We should not fall prey to the idea that a church’s goal is to obtain abundant congregants.  Your purpose is to minister and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You are therefore on a path and always in motion.  Sometimes things go awry while traveling down that road and sometimes things go smoothly.  You, New Saint John, should consider your existence in light of your history and where your history is going and not by an instance in time or the number of members that attend on Sundays.

What if God is finished with the church in its present form?  What if God is trying to move you to a different paradigm or to a different activity within ministry?  If you are constantly trying to obtain more members or blindly hold on to traditions then you are sure to miss what God is doing and remain outside of his purpose.  It is more important to walk with God and know God than it is to grow a church organization.  What do you want?  Do you want more members or do you want to participate in the ministry of God on the earth by doing your part in that effort?

I am going to give you an overview of the history of the Temple of God to highlight my last point about purpose and following God.  If we were to look back at one point in history at about 586 BC then we would say that the worship of God is finished.  The Jerusalem temple is finished.  However, that was not the case.  The whole Jewish history was going someplace and it led to the birth of Jesus Christ and the salvation of the world.

We are going to look at…

1. The building of the tabernacle
2. The building of the Temple
3. The destruction of the Temple
4. The rebuilding of the Temple
5. The coming of Jesus Christ
6. Christianity

I hope, New Saint John, that you would be encouraged after this sermon.  I pray that you would not look at your present situation and use that as a measure of your effectiveness in ministry.  I hope that you would see that you are indeed going someplace and that your present condition is only a point on the path of your existence.  I pray that you would pursue God and do all that you can to follow him and participate in the ministry that he wants regardless of what it might mean.

The History of the Temple of God

The history of the Temple is a rich one and involves many generations, nations, and kings.  It also leads straight to Jesus Christ and the New Covenant.  Let’s take a brief look at the history of the temple to show that you cannot measure progress by an instance in time.

The Tabernacle

See Exodus 25 – 26.

The tabernacle was a tent constructed for activities of worship.  It was constructed in the 14th century BC (The exodus took place about 1446 BC).  It was also called the sanctuary and “tent of meeting.”  It was a portable structure since the Hebrew people were moving around while in the desert before they reached the Promised Land.  The tabernacle consisted of three parts.

1. The Holy Place (30 ft X 15 ft)
2. The Most Holy Place or the Holy of Holies (15 ft X 15 ft).  This section contained the Ark of the Covenant, which was probably the most treasured item in the entire tabernacle.  It was a gold plated chest of acacia wood 3.5 ft X 2.33 ft.  The lid of the ark was made with pure gold.  It also contained the golden lamp stand (menorah) among other items.
3. Courtyard (148 ft X 74 ft)

The most precious thing about the temple was not its construction, but the fact that it was the place where God met the people.  The most important thing about the tabernacle was its value as a center of worship.

We know that the Israelites had many conquests while on their way to the Promised Land.  These included…

1. Sihon (King of the Amorites
2. Og (King of Bashan)
3. Jericho
4. Ai
5. Canaan

The Israelites were indeed progressing as they went from slaves in Egypt to possessors of the Promised Land.  In the mean time they used the tabernacle as a center for worship.

Solomon’s Temple

See 1 Kings 6:1-10; 14-38

Solomon’s Temple began construction in his fourth year as King (about 967 or 966 BC).  It took seven years to build and was 89 ft X 30 ft X 44 ft.  It was a beautiful and magnificent building.  It was composed of three parts.

1. Porch (portico)
2. Main Hall (Holy Place)
3. Inner Sanctuary (Most Holy Place)

The walls and floors of the temple were covered with gold.  Solomon’s annual revenue in gold was about 23 tons.  The queen of Sheba gave him a gift of 4 tons of gold.

Even though the temple was a magnificent building, the greatest feature was the presence of God that appeared as a cloud (2 Chronicles 5:13b-14).

So the Israelites went from slavery, to the tabernacle in the wilderness and many conquests to inhabiting the Promised Land, to the magnificent temple build by Solomon.  We could say that they were making great progress!

The Split

However, things began to go awry.  The ten northern tribes seceded from the two southern kingdoms (Judah and Benjamin) at about 930 BC due to the cruel intentions of Rehoboam (1 Kings 12:11).

Jeroboam became king of the northern kingdom.  He sets up idol worship so that the people would not have to go back down to Jerusalem to the temple for worship, which could lead to their allegiance to Rehoboam.

In 722 the northern kingdom (called Israel) fell to the Assyrians in about 722 BC.

The Destruction of the Temple

Solomon’s magnificent temple was destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians.  The Babylonians took siege of the city and eventually breeched the walls.  They burned the temple and not a trace of it was found since.  There was one possible exception in 1979 when an ivory pomegranate appeared on the antiquities market. However, the Israelite Antiquities Authority declared the object as a fake.

The Babylonians broke apart the objects in the temple and took the bronze, gold, and sliver back to Babylon.  The items were most likely melted down and reused.

Rebuilding the Temple

The Persian king, Cyrus, took Babylon (about 539 BC) and interestingly enough the people were very happy about it.  Cyrus did treat his loyal subjects well and this led directly to the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem.  Cyrus decreed that the Jews could go back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple and worship their God (See 2 Chronicles 36:23; Ezra 1:2-3a).

The people shouted after they had completed the foundation of the temple.  However, some were grieved because they knew of the former glory of the temple.  See Ezra 3:11b-12.  The rebuilt temple was smaller and inferior to the one that Solomon built.  For one thing it did not have the Ark of the Covenant since that was never recovered.

Herod Rebuilds Solomon’s Temple

Herod offered to rebuild the temple for the Jews.  This was most likely to appease or win the support of the Jews.  Many feared that he would demolish the current temple without rebuilding it.  However, the temple was completed even after Herod’s death.

Herod began construction of the temple in 19 AD.  This included the demolition of the current temple.  The main structure was completed at about 9 BC whereas the entire temple wasn’t complete until about 63 or 64 AD.  It too did not contain the Ark of the Covenant since that was never recovered.

The temple used the same type of white stone that Solomon’s temple used and it was magnificent.

However, only a short time later the temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.

So the temple went from tabernacle to Solomon’s Temple to destruction by Babylon to rebuilding to redoing by Herod and then to destruction. 

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ came to us through the Jewish nation.  This is the same nation where the word of God came from.  We learn about worshipping God from the temple worship described in the Old Testament.  Though the temple was destroyed twice in its history, we see that its effectiveness is incalculable.

Now consider that Jesus Christ died for our salvation.  Imagine how the disciples might have felt after Jesus was crucified.  Perhaps they thought that all was lost and that the Kingdom of God would not come.  However, progress of God’s plan could not be measured

in such a way.  Of course we know that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

Christianity

Now the early Christians experienced various periods of persecution first from the Jews and than later from the Roman Empire itself.  Someone back in the first few centuries AD could conclude that Christianity would not last since there was so much opposition to it.  However, the more the Christian were persecuted the more it spread.  Even the Roman Empire embraced Christianity starting with the edict of Milan by Constantine, which announced the tolerance of the Christian faith (and other religions) in AD 313.  Again we see that we cannot measure progress of God’s plan by looking at one instance in time.

There were many threats to the Christian faith and many times when the new faith seemed as though it would not survive.  There were various heresies in the early church including the infamous arianism.  However, Christianity prevailed.

There are a number of reasons why people throughout Christian history might have thought that Christianity was doomed.  However it prevailed and continues to be strong even now.  We definitely cannot measure progress by a single point in time.  There are many points in time where someone might have thought that Christianity failed, but of course we know otherwise when we consider the historic path of Christianity.

We could look at the history of the temple and say that it has nothing to show for its existence.  However, the temple is a type of icon for the worship of God.  Paul says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19, 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16).

Conclusion

So New Saint John, your current situation is just one point on a graph of your history.  God is using you and will continue to use you.  Do not be discouraged.  You have had good times and bad times.  Things may not look as good as it was before, but God has not left you.  God is still using you and wants to use you.  Keep your head high and do the things of God.

Don’t focus on church or the Sunday morning service.  Instead focus on God’s will for you.  Go where God is leading and not where your traditions lead you.  I know from personal experience that you have to be willing to go outside of the box in addition to thinking outside of the box so to speak.  You have to be willing to do things that seem to be inconsistent with your traditions or way of doing things.  God does not necessarily travel where you think he will go. However, we should follow him nonetheless.

So be encouraged.  Brush yourself off and begin to minister.  Don’t worry about the numbers.  Just do the will of God and allow him to prosper you and take you were he wants you to go. You are a tool for the Lord so let him define your purpose instead of you trying to do it.