What will you do when . . . . . ?

This morning, while we were looking at a prophecy which came through the email, we were discussing the role of servant leadership rather than the ‘bossy’ leadership so prevalent in todays churches. We discussed how, in Acts, because the apostles were too busy to do all the serving, they appointed seven men to organise this. Suddenly, my wife innocently asked, “If you have 3000 people saved in one day – what are you going to do with them? The apostles were too busy planting new churches and saving people to do all the discipling as well.” A good question and a good point, I thought, and the Lord took me to this scripture Acts 2:40-41 “With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” As I read it I realised this was a word for the church today.

What will you do when ‘3000’ people are added to your numbers in one day. In 2008 I asked a group of pastors and leaders much the same question. What will you do when you get 10, 20, or even 50 new members coming to your church every week? Nearly all of them admitted they would not be able to cope with the first 10, 20, or 50, let alone every week. Perhaps only the bigger churches will be able to cope with this kind of growth but I suspect that even they would struggle – unless they had quite a few discipleship teams already trained and waiting. Perhaps this is what we should be doing by way of preparation for revival, training people in discipleship so that they can lead others. Then I had another thought, that those new to the Lord will need careful training – eventually.

Yes, eventually – because, in revival, the newly won will be our greatest witness to others we missed on the last sweep through. Their testimonies will win even more to the Lord. I have seen people saved and baptised in the Holy Spirit all in the space of 10 minutes. There had not been time to ‘train them in the way they should go’. In one sovereign move in their life, God brought them right into the Kingdom in all its fullness. In a moment, He gave them a witness and a testimony that they may not understand or be able to explain for weeks. So how will you handle 10, 20, or 50 of people like this every week.

In short, you won’t – you will have to send them out without all our precious training because the Holy Spirit ‘will lead them into all truth’ and He will give them the words as they show they are willing to speak. Training will be needed, but more like, it will be instruction and comprehension of what has actually happened to them. The first church didn’t have training programs – they simply had people willing to explain a few things. Everything was done by word of mouth. They had no overhead projectors. They had no use of many tracts and papers and questionnaires as most people couldn’t read and write anyway. They only had personal spoken witness.

So, in my opinion, that’s what we will do when we get 10, 20, or 50 new people every week. We will do what the first church did – rely on personal testimony and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.