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The Five 'All's of King's Church

God’s method is to multiply.

In Matthew 15:29-39 we read about the miracle of Jesus feeding four thousand people. He multiplied bread and fish, just like in the feeding of the five thousand (Matthew 13) to feed hungry people.

If we’re to be people who move into ALL that God has for us we can learn three important lessons from this miracle:

1. Kingdom Progress isn’t always about doing different things, but the same things with different people.

  • 5000 narrative indicates a Jewish audience.
  • 4000 narrative indicates a gentile audience.
  • Vision is never about novelty, but about God’s grace impacting more and more people.

2. Kingdom Progress requires faith every time.

  • The apostles don’t seem to have learned anything from when Jesus fed 5000! They once again seem to be hindered by faithless, constrained thinking.
  • Jesus graciously leads them to dependence on him again. We also need to learn that following Jesus requires faith every day.

3. Kingdom Progress is always about giving what we have to Jesus.

We give him the ordinary and he does the extra-ordinary

  • Jesus multiplies what we put in his hands, bringing healing, hearing, sight, and resurrection.
  • There's one exception to this rule: our sins, which he removes completely!

King’s Church has been a story of multiplication over 17 years since we started.

A dozen people gave themselves into Jesus hands and filled up a home, then a lecture theatre, then a school hall. We gave what we had (which wasn’t much in property terms) to buy a building. He gave us our current building. 2 years ago, he multiplied us into West Lothian and into 2 weekly services at King’s Church Edinburgh. He multiplied our eldership from 3 to 6 people last year.

He’s multiplying our vision as a church.

We are praying and believing God to do even more through us than he has so far.

We call these the 5 ALL’s of King’s Church:

Church for ALL

When Paul preached the gospel he became all things to all people so that some might be saved (1 Cor 9:22). We’re asking God to make us increasingly diverse, building church with people of all backgrounds, education levels, nationalities and ages. We’re finally getting a disabled lift installed to allow wheelchair users to access our main meetings.

Church for ALL EDINBURGH

In December many of us opened up our homes to neighbours and friends. King’s Church isn’t just a gathering in Bruntsfield, it’s wherever we live across our great city. We want to see many more small groups established across all of Edinburgh. This will require giving more priority to raising up small group leaders and investing in them regularly to ensure small group leading is something we can help people aspire to rather than a heavy weight that’s too hard to lift!

Church where we’re ALL IN

It was said of the early church in Jerusalem that “they devoted themselves” (Acts 2:42). We believe church isn’t a meeting to attend, but a community where we lay down our lives for one another, giving our time, energy, gifts and finances. We also want to be a church that makes people at the start of their journey exploring faith really accessible and helps them take bigger steps towards following Jesus. Alpha and the POD discipleship courses are key for this.

Church that preaches ALL OF THE GOSPEL

Jesus promised the preaching of the gospel would be accompanied by “signs following” (Mark 16). Paul declared, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power”. We want to be a church that demonstrates Christ in Word, Works and Wonders. Sharing truth, love and power with our city that so badly needs it. In this next season we want to make more space in our Sunday gatherings to pray for the sick and for what else God wants to do. You can listen to Dave Holden encouraging us to believe for this here. Adrian Holloway will be visiting on the 9th and 10th March to help equip us in the vital area of praying for healing.

Church that goes into ALL THE WORLD.

We’re part of a growing family of churches around the world. Our passion is to build a big church for Jesus here in Edinburgh filled with diverse people and ministries that serve our city. BUT we also want to be generous, sending people (often our most core, committed and gifted) to plant churches in Scotland and around the world. It’s part of God’s calling for us at King’s.

Let’s believe him to multiply us into these 5 vital areas in 2019.

Questions:

  • What encouragement do you take from the feeding of the four thousand? What does it teach us about God’s heart? What does the disciples' response teach us about our own journey of faith?

  • What most excites you about the 5 'All’s and why?

  • Which “All” do you find your biggest challenge to personally engage with?

  • How could we as a small group engage with the 5 'All’s?

  • All of the gospel: What possible dangers do we face when we get “word (preaching and loving scripture), works (care for those around us in need) and wonders (supernatural power)” out of balance? How did the early church balance these out, from your observation?

  • Staying or sending? What season of life are you in? Is God calling you to bear fruit here in Edinburgh, or do you feel him beginning to speak about another place (even if that's in a future stage of life)?