THE DOMINO EFFECT
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 29, 2004
MATTHEW 16:13-18
All of you have heard of Jim and Dave, and some of you know their story. Jim was born in Hannibal, Missouri in the year 1875. His father was the pastor of a small church in a farming community, and Jim accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. He asked Jesus into his heart when he was very young. When Jim was 21 years of age, he went to work in a department store and he saved his money. at the age of 25, Jim bought a little department store in the state of Wyoming. Jim called that little department store the Golden Rule Store because he wanted to live by the Golden Rule and he wanted to honor the Sermon on the Mount. So he started his business and he sold his products at a fair price and he provided for his employees, letting them share any percentage of the profits.
He built another department store and another department store. soon there were a number of Golden Rule stores. By the time Jim was 50 years old, he had 750 department stores in 45 states across America. Then Jim died in 1971. At the age of 96 when Jim died, he had 1,700 department stores. They were no longer called Golden Rule Stores, but they were all named after Jim. They were named JC Penney’s—James Cash Penny.
Now, Dave was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the year 1932. Dave never knew his parents. He was adopted by a couple in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dave had a mom and dad, but tragically, when he was five years old, his mom died. Dave was reared by his father, but his father was shiftless, moving from town to town and city to city.
He could never settle down. When Dave was 15 years old, Dave and his father came to the town of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Dave liked Fort Wayne. His father came to him after only a couple of months and said, son, it’s time to move on. You know how I am. I’m restless. Let’s go. Dave said, dad, I love you, but I want to stay here. I’m 15 years old now. I can take care of myself. Why don’t you go on, I’ll stay here. they gave each other and embrace and told each other they loved each other. Dave’s dad left and Dave went and got a room at the local YMCA and took a job in the Hobby House restaurant there in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He worked in that restaurant for three years. When Dave was 18 years old, he joined the army and he went to the army culinary school.
I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but Dave actually learned to cook in the Army. When he got out of his military service, he came back to Fort Wayne and he became the chief chef at the Hobby House restaurant. He met Lorraine, fell in love with her, and they were married and they loved each other all the days of their life. They saved their money, and when Dave was 30 years old they moved to Columbus, Ohio and they bought four bankrupt Kentucky Fried Chickens and kind of picked them up for a song. Dave revitalized these franchises and made them profitable. By the time Dave was 35 years old, he was a multimillionaire. it was in that year, when he was 35 years old, that Dave with a group of other guys established a new restaurant business called Arthur Treacher Fish and Chips.
Dave was one of the founders of Arthur Treacher, and that would’ve been enough for anybody, but not enough for Dave because he didn’t really like fish and he really didn’t like chicken either. What Dave loved was hamburgers. So when Dave was 37 years old, he opened his first hamburger restaurant. He named it after his daughter Melinda Lou. But Dave never called her Melinda Lou. Dave called her by her nickname, and her nickname was Wendy. So Dave opened his first Wendy’s restaurant, and Dave died just a few years ago. When he died, he had 3,800 Wendy’s restaurants in 30 nations and territories of the world, with 130,000 employees and 600 employees at his world headquarters. Some people say that Dave accepted Christ and loved Christ. I hope that is true. I do not know, but I do know this: the story of Jim and Dave illustrates the story of the church of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven.
The stories of Jim and Dave are illustrative of what the Bible tells us about the church of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven because the church of Jesus Christ was meant to start very small and grow very, very large. The kingdom of heaven was meant to start very, very small and grow to be huge. Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Have you ever wondered what that phrase means, “The gates of Hades?” Some Bible scholars interpret it as referring to death because in Hebrew theology Hades was the keeping place of the dead. So they think it means the powers of death. Jesus said, I’ll build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
Other Bible scholars point out that the word Hades in the time of Jesus was synonymous with the word hell, so they think The meaning is the powers of hell. I’ll build my church and the powers of hell will not prevail against it. it really doesn’t matter because both meanings are true. Jesus is going to build His church and nothing is able to stop it.
We come to Matthew 13 and Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took planted in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown, it becomes the greatest of shrubs. It becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches. Jesus went on to tell the parable of the leaven, that it would infuse the dough until the whole of the loaf was leavened.
The kingdom of heaven, again, is meant to grow—start small, grow big. This is the consistent message of the Bible. We have the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28: “Go into all the world and make disciples.” It’s all about the growth of the church. The truth is the Great Commission is found not only in Matthew chapter 28, but in varying forms it is found at the end of all four Gospels—Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. Even in the first chapter of the book of Acts, the Great Commission is given once more before Jesus ascends into heaven. He tells His disciples, “You shall be My witnesses.” It’s all about the growth of the church. We look at the Old Testament and the prophets, from Isaiah to Daniel, all prophesy that the Messiah would establish a kingdom and it would grow and grow forever.
The church of Jesus Christ is meant to grow, and this church has grown. This church has grown far beyond what we ever expected, what we ever dreamed of. Yet we still seek its growth and we seek the growth of the church of Jesus Christ universal. We have planted churches through the years. We gave birth to Greenwood Community Church. This was our daughter church. Today it is our sister church. We thank God that it thrives. We are giving birth to this new church in the urban corridor through Dave Meserve. It’s all part of the Urban Skye ministry. It’s all part of the growth of the kingdom and the church of Jesus Christ. We have formed relationships with five inner city churches and we seek their growth. We have entered into missionary projects in 65 nations of the earth because we seek the growth of the kingdom of heaven on earth and the church of Jesus Christ.
And if you’re a Christian, if you take the name of Jesus Christ and you don’t want to see this church grow, something’s wrong with your Christianity. If you’re a Christian and you take the name of Jesus Christ and you don’t want to see the church of Jesus Christ grow all over the world, something is wrong with your Christianity. The church of Jesus Christ is meant to grow. Now that’s our introduction, and I have two teachings this morning and you can follow along in your bulletin today.
First of all, if the church of Jesus Christ is going to grow, Christians must be bringers. If the church of Jesus Christ is going to grow, we all must be bringers. We’ve been called to bring people to church. We’ve been called to bring people to Christ. This charge, this call is on every single Christian. Christians must be bringers. Now, in John chapter one, verses 35 to 45, we have an amazing passage of scripture. It begins with John the Baptist, who is calling people to himself, gathering disciples, and baptizing them in the Jordan River. They came from all over the holy land. Then John saw Jesus.
John saw Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, recognized Him as the Messiah, the Son of God. John told his disciples to leave and go and follow Jesus. Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John sent his disciples over to Jesus saying Jesus is greater than all. Now, two of John’s disciples who went to follow Jesus, we’re told in this passage in John chapter one, were Andrew and then another disciple who’s not named (but almost all Bible scholars believe it was John). They went to follow Jesus and they began to hang out with Jesus. They saw His glory and their very souls were touched. We’re told that Andrew first went and found his brother and brought him to Jesus. In John chapter one, Andrew becomes the first bringer. He goes and finds his brother Peter and brings him to Jesus.
Now, there’s some scholarly debate about this phrase, because there’s textual dispute in the early manuscripts. It says first Andrew went and found his brother and brought him to Jesus. The word first is different in two of the early manuscripts. In one case it’s the word “protos,” which is a superlative comparative adjective. It would mean that Andrew went and found his brother Peter before John could go and find his brother James. But in another textual manuscript, it’s not the word protos but the word “proton” and proton is an additive accusative adjective. It would mean that that Andrew went and found his brother Peter and brought him to Jesus before he went and found other people and brought them to Jesus. But any way you look at it, there’s a lot of bringing going on. There’s a lot of bringing going on. In that same passage, as you go through those verses, Jesus called Philip to Himself, and then Philip goes and brings Nathaniel, sometimes called Bartholomew.
It’s all part of the bringing of the early church. The early church grew because Christians were bringers. So you go through the gospels and Christians bringing their children to Jesus that He might bless them. You see them bringing their sick to Jesus, that He might heal them. You see them bringing their friends to Jesus that He might teach them and disciple them. It’s all about bringing.
The church of Jesus Christ grows because people are willing to bring other people. Now you have the domino Mark told you about, and you might be thinking, what is this about? And I know that most of you have played the game of dominoes, which originated in China a long, long time ago—so long ago that nobody really knows when this game was first invented, just that it was invented in China. It is known that in the 1300’s the game of dominoes came to Europe. European people begin to play dominoes. There are many different forms of the game of dominoes, but they all involve 28 dominoes. In most of the games, the goal is to reach a hundred points. Now, a lot of us, when we grew up, had dominoes, but sometimes we didn’t play the game. What we really liked to see was what is called the domino effect. You remember that when you were a kid, you’d line up all your dominoes and you just push the front one and watch the whole row go down. That’s kind of fun. Then as you got a little older, you get a little more creative and you put some tangents out there. Maybe you’d build some bridges, make it more complex, but you’d still push that first domino, and you’d watch the domino effect as dominoes just toppled one after another.
The church of Jesus Christ is supposed to grow like that through the domino effect. It’s as simple as that. Having been impacted, you are now called to impact another. Having been brought, you are called to bring another. You know what happens in dominoes? If one domino doesn’t do its job—maybe it’s not lined up quite right, maybe not turned in exactly the right direction—everything stops. It’s like that with the church of Jesus Christ. The cause of Christ is damaged when you’re not willing to be a bringer, when having been impacted, you’re not willing to make an impact. So he wants you to keep these dominoes—take them home with you, maybe put them in your purse, maybe put it in your wallet. Put it somewhere where you can see it. It’s a reminder of the domino effect by which the church of Jesus Christ grows. The fact is that each of us are called to be bringers. Christians must be bringers. That’s our first teaching this morning.
The second teaching has to do with all the attributes that must characterize those who bring. If you’re going to be a bringer, you’re going to have to have these six attributes. First of all, you must be courageous. Can’t be a bringer unless you have courage.
You have to have courage. I know many of you have heard of Jeff Van Gundy. Jeff Van Gundy used to coach the New York Knicks. More recently, he has coached the Houston Rockets. He’s an NBA coach. The story of Jeff Van Gundy is told in the New York Times, and I read that story. It seems that when in college, he went to Yale University and there at Yale University he formed a friendship with 11 other guys. The 12 of them kind of just hung out together at Yale. Now, they were at Yale at the same time that Jodi Foster was at Yale, the movie actress. she was already famous, even though she was so young because she was a childhood actress playing in movies like Candleshoe. All of these 12 guys that Jeff hung out with wanted to ask Jodi Foster out on a date, but they didn’t have the guts.
They were afraid. They were afraid that maybe they’d be rejected. So they made a wager that whoever got the first date with Jodi Foster, all the other 11 guys would give him a hundred bucks—$1,100 to whoever got the first date with Jodi Foster. Well, it was just the very next day after the wager that Jeff Van Gundy was coming back to Yale University. As he got near the campus, he went into a small grocery store, like a 7-11. He went in there to get a bag of popcorn out of this machine, and he was putting popcorn in the bag and suddenly heard a voice behind him. It was a young woman’s voice. she said, “Wow, that popcorn sure smells good.” He turned around and it was Jodi Foster. And he was paralyzed.
I mean, he wanted to ask her out. He wanted to ask her out on a date, but he was just so intimidated. And she said, “That popcorn sure smells good.” All he could say was, “It sure does.” That was it. That’s all he did. That’s all he said. It was just later in the week where another one of his friends asked Jodi Foster out on a date. She went, and Jeff’s friend got the $1,100 bucks, but it was a turning point in Jeff’s life. He said he resolved that from that point on that he would live a life with courage. He would always be bold about the things that mean the most to him. He would not live a life of timidity. He resolved that. We need to resolve that. As Christians, you need to resolve that. I need to resolve that. We’re going to be people of courage. We’re going to have proper boldness about the things that count. We’re not going to live lives of timidity. You can’t be a bringer if you don’t have at least some courage. That’s why in Ephesians chapter six, the Apostle Paul writing to the church there and he says, “Pray for me that I might have courage. “Tolmao” is the Greek word meaning boldness. He says it twice; he reiterates it. Pray that I might have courage to be a bringer to share the gospel. As you go through the epistles of Paul, time and again he asks that people pray for his courage, and time and again he exhorts the saints, all the people of Christ, to be people of courage. We’re so wussy in the church of Jesus Christ. We need more courage.
Bringers also must be confident. There are reasons for bringers to be confident, because the gospel has been anointed with power. When you serve the gospel, that power attends you. Now, I know that many of you have heard of the cocklebur plant farmers and ranchers, and I think people in general kind of hate the cocklebur. It’s kind of a weed. It has a seed pod that’s very prickly with real sharp, spiny extensions, and the cocklebur seed pod gets stuck in people’s socks. Maybe you’ve experienced that. They get stuck in the tails of dogs and horses and cattle, and that’s why the cocklebur is hated so much.
And yet, in terms of botany, in terms of science, the cocklebur is an amazing plant endowed by God with incredible attributes. Because in that seed pod, scientists tell us, there are three different types of seeds. Scientists call Them seed A, seed B, and seed C. They all germinate differently. Seed A germinates in the first year, seed B germinates in the second year, and seed C germinates in the third year. This way, the cocklebur is able to thrive because even if there’s a drought, it’s protected against drought. If there’s a one-year drought, well, seeds B and C are still functional. If there’s a two-year drought, seed C is still functional because it germinates in the third year. Isn’t this incredible how God has made this? And understand that the seed of the gospel is like that. It’s resilient, it’s powerful, and oh is it potent.
When you invite somebody to church, when you are willing to become a bringer and they come and hear the gospel, or when you share the gospel and you share your testimony and your story, oh, there’s power in that. There’s power that may take effect and be effective a week down the road, a month down the road, a year, two years, or a decade down the road. But the power is there; it tends the gospel. You can be confident. You can know the power of God is with you when you share the gospel. So Jesus said, “I’ll build My church and nothing will prevail against it.” That gives us confidence.
Jesus told us the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13 and said, “A sower went out to sow. He encountered four types of soil. Hard ground the seed would not penetrate it. The birds came and took the seeds away. Rocky ground with shallow soil the seed would penetrate, but it couldn’t really take root and nothing lasting could grow. Then thorny soil the seed penetrated, took root, and the plant grew, but then the thorns and the thistles choked the fruit of the seed. But finally, there was good soil. There was good soil and it bore fruit 30-, 60-, 100-fold.”
Jesus wants us to know as we go out as sowers, willing to be bringers; as we go out and we invite people to church; as we share the story of Jesus as we go forth; we’re going to encounter all kinds of soil. But don’t lose heart. Be confident. There’s good soil out there, and it will bear fruit 30-, 60-, and 100-fold.
You know, one of my favorite stories I’ve told a number of times through the 22 year history of our church is the story of Rigby. What a bringer story. Rigby was a businessman in Scotland, and every weekend he went to Edinburgh because his business took him there. So every weekend, Rigby went and stayed in a hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland. Every weekend while in Edinburgh, Scotland, Rigby went to St. George’s Church where the pastor was Alexander Whyte. Rigby had a routine. Every Sunday morning, he’d get up from his hotel room, go down in the hotel lobby after cleaning up, and he’d get a cup of coffee and a newspaper. He’d ask the Lord to show him who he should invite to church with him. He said a little prayer, “Lord, show me who to invite.” He wanted to bring somebody every Sunday.
He’d find other people there reading the newspaper, having a cup of coffee, and he’d just go up to somebody and say, “Would you like to go with me to church today? I’m going over to St. George’s Church.” Sometimes they’d say no, sometimes yes. When they said no, he’d often ask somebody else. He almost always brought somebody to St. George’s Church. One Sunday, Rigby brought someone from the hotel lobby to church with him, and oh, he was so excited because during the service that morning the person he brought accepted Jesus Christ, asking Jesus into his heart. And Rigby just cried. He was so grateful that God had used him. Later that afternoon, Rigby was walking around Edinburgh and he went off into a neighborhood just on impulse. He was surprised to see the name of Alexander Whyte.
He had found Alexander Whyte’s house, the pastor of St. George’s. He thought, “I’m going to go up to the door and I’m just going to tell the pastor what happened today.” So he went up to the door and knocked on it. Alexander Whyte came to the door, Rigby introduced himself and said, “I just want to tell you this morning we were at church and I brought somebody with me. That person I brought was touched by your sermon, and God used it, and I’m so excited because that person I brought asked Jesus into his heart.” Well, Alexander Whyte was really excited too. He said, “Tell me, what was your name again?” He said, “My name is Rigby.” Alexander Whyte began to cry. I mean, the tears just flowed down his face. He said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you for years.”
He said, “come into my house.” Rigby came into his house and they went back to his study, and Alexander took a stack of letters more than a foot high. All of them had been written by somebody who was in the lobby of a hotel in Edinburgh when a man named Rigby came up and invited them to St. George’s Church, all of them had accepted Christ. 10 of them had gone into the full-time gospel ministry. It’s a true story. Absolutely amazing. Do you realize the power of God that attends the gospel? Do you realize the confidence that you should have and the opportunity that is before you if you’d be willing to be a bringer?
Well, thirdly, bringers must understand God’s priorities. We must not only be courageous and confident, but we need to understand what’s most important to God. Now, all of you, I’m sure at least most of you, have seen the Mercedes-Benz commercial where the Mercedes just crash into the wall. It’s a commercial advertising the energy-absorbing car body of Mercedes-Benz. They have a patent on an energy-absorbing body that’s unique to Mercedes-Benz, and it enables the car to withstand impact and to save lives. But they’ve never enforced the patent. They’ve actually allowed other car makers to steal this energy-absorbing body design. They’ve done this willingly and in their commercial on TV a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz says, “Some things in life are just too important to not share
And this is true of the gospel. It’s just too important to not share it. In fact, I will tell you this because the Bible’s absolutely clear. Nothing is more important than the gospel of the kingdom. The whole message of Jesus Christ is called the gospel. It is the gospel of salvation. It is the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. It is more important than anything. We saw last week how Jesus said to His disciples, “No one who has left homes or brothers or sisters, or mother or father or children, or lands for my sake and for the gospel but what they will receive a hundred fold in this life and in the life to come, eternal life.”
I mean, we leave everything for the gospel if necessary. The gospel is that important. It’s even more important than our friends and loved ones. There are many Christians who have had to leave their families and were kicked out by their families just because they had embraced the gospel. This is so important. A bringer needs to know what’s most important to God. Understand that it’s the gospel because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. New life comes through the gospel.
Well, fourthly, bringers must not view churches as competitive. As we go forth and we become bringers for the growth of the kingdom of heaven, we should realize that churches, evangelical churches, churches who truly honor Jesus Christ and His Word, should not be in competition. We need to understand this.
You know, some time ago I was sitting in an office waiting to meet with somebody and there was a Reader’s Digest there. I picked up the Reader’s Digest and there was an article inside that kind of caught my attention. It was called, “What Good are Trees?” And people view trees differently. I mean, as a logger looks at a forest, he probably has different thoughts than an environmentalist would have. People view trees differently. But as I read this article, there was a section in there that really fascinated me because it was about tree competition. It says that sometimes forests are devastated by competition between trees. As trees compete for nutrients and for moisture, and even for sunlight, some trees are losers and they just die. Sometimes forests are greatly impacted by competition between trees.
Well, scientists have made an amazing discovery. According to this article in the Reader’s Digest, they found that there’s a fungus that grows in many forests across the forest floor just beneath the ground and this fungus works in this amazing way where it stops competition between trees. The fungus unites the root systems of all the trees in the forest, even trees of differing species. This fungus unites all their root systems so that they function in unity and work together. They no longer compete for nutrients and for moisture and even for sunlight, but they share. It’s an amazing thing I read.
Now, I don’t mean to compare the person of the Holy Spirit with a fungus. I mean, that’s kind of a hard analogy. Yet there’s a sense in which the power of the Holy Spirit functions like this. The Holy Spirit connects the churches of Jesus Christ. There’s one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of us all. We’re not in competition. We’re not trying to bring believers from other churches.
We’re hoping that other churches aren’t trying to do that with us. We want other churches to have bringers, we want our church to have bringers, and we want all the churches to grow. When we started here, there were about three or four churches in Highlands Ranch. Now there’s 37. All of them who honor Christ we want to grow. We want to see the kingdom grow. It’s meant to grow. We want this church to continue to grow as we’re willing to be bringers. The church of Jesus Christ does not grow because of great preaching or great music. The Church of Jesus Christ grows because people in the congregation are willing to be bringers, willing to serve the gospel. We’re not in competition.
Fifthly, bringers must work together. You know, October 15th, in the year 1997 at the Kings Ford Smith International Airport in Sydney, Australia, a man named David Huxley put a harness on his upper torso. The harness was connected by a steel chain to the nose of a 747. He pulled that 187-ton aircraft a hundred yards in a minute and 20 seconds. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for that accomplishment. What occurred to me as I read about that is that I’m confident the plane never got off the ground.
It occurred to me that we live in a world where nothing gets off the ground by one person working independently. People have to work together. Well, you might say, he could have gone into the cockpit and he could have taken that plane off the ground by himself. But it wouldn’t really have been by himself. He’d have been benefiting from the laborers of countless other people who had built and designed the aircraft. And he wouldn’t have been able to fly the plane unless he’d been trained by others. No one by themselves accomplishes anything great. This is true of the church of Jesus Christ. We need to work together.
You know, there’s a word that the Apostle Paul uses. He uses it again and again. He uses it in Colossians, uses it in Romans, uses it in 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians. the word is “sunergos.” And it literally means “to work together.” It’s oftentimes translated co laborer, co-worker. Paul uses this word sunergos to describe his fellow pastors. He uses this word to describe all Christians. We’re all co-laborers. We’re all co-workers. Sunergos means working together. We’ll never be what the church of Jesus Christ is meant to be unless we come together and we resolve together that we’re going to be bringers and we’re going to see people fall in love with Jesus Christ.
Well, finally, bringers must bring both Christians and non-Christians. As you think about who to bring to church, remember you need to bring Christians as well as non-Christians. Because there are a lot of Christians out there who almost never go to church. I mean, they almost never go to church. They’re at least nominal Christians, but they almost never go to church. If you ask them if they believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they’d say yes, but they never go to church.
We need to bring them too. A few years ago, you may have read in the papers about three gray whales that were icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska. They were icebound in the midst of a huge ice flow. They were battered, they were bloodied, and they were gasping for air. They’d come up into a little hole in the ice, gasping for air. Whales are mammals. They need to breathe. They need to surface regularly. A lot of times, whales die beneath massive ice flows because they simply can’t reach the surface. When they’re in that shape and they’re panicked, before they die they’re desperate. They rise and they ram their bodies beneath the surface of the ice. It’s razor-like there. They batter themselves. They bruise themselves. They bloody themselves. They’re desperate to create a hole in the ice so they can get some air.
That’s what happened with these three whales. Finally, somehow they broke that hole in the ice. There they were battered, bloodied, gasping for air. They were found by planes. Reports were given. It made the international news. Scientists came and they brought explosives experts, and they blew holes in the ice every 50 yards. It was five miles out to the open sea through the ice flow. Every 50 yards they blew a hole in the ice. It took them eight days to coax those three whales out into the safety of the open sea. I want you to understand that the church of Jesus Christ is kind of like a breathing hole in the ice flow. It’s a breathing hole. Our souls need to breathe. We live in a fallen world. It’s not spiritually friendly. There are some people out there just going to church on Christmas and Easter. That’s not enough breathing holes, and their souls are just gasping for air.
We need to bring them. Why did God give the commandment that we ought to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy? Because we need a lot of breathing holes. We need a breathing hole every week. We need to come to church every week. We need breath for our soul. Why did the Apostle Paul say, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves to together”? Why did he say, “Do not neglect to assemble together, as is the habit of some”? Because we desperately need these breathing holes.
So we’re bringers. We want to bring non-Christians. We also want to bring Christians who don’t attend church much. It’s all for the glory of Christ, that people might fall in love with Christ and that His kingdom, meant to grow would, grow and we would be faithful. So the church of Jesus Christ is meant to grow. Christians are called to be bringers and bringers must be courageous. They have reason to be confident. They must understand the priority of the gospel. Nothing is more important. They must understand that true churches of Christ are not in competition. We must work together, bringing both Christians and non-Christians.
This is our ministry focus this upcoming year. Every time you look at that domino, let it remind you the domino effect by which the church of Jesus Christ grows and of which we’re called to be a part. Let’s close with a word of prayer.