TITLE: Have You Been to Kadesh?

TEXT: Numbers 13:26-33

PROPOSITION: Every church reaches a Kadesh where it either advances as God directs or retreats.

QUESTION: What?

KEY WORD: Observations

Introduction:

1. Story of the turkey, cookbook told how to stuff, prepare and roast a turkey. One problem – there is no turkey in the house.

2. What is stopping me from eating a roast turkey?

A. Motivation - Am I hungry enough?

B. Resources - Do I want to pay the price?

C. Ingredients - What lack I yet?

3. What is stopping this church from growing?

A. Lack of ingredients - I don't think so.

B. Lack of motivation - Are you hungry?

C. Not willing to pay the price - Willing to pay?

I. Church growth is a "natural tendency."

1. Question is not, "How can we grow?"

2. The church is a living organism = therefore -grows.

3. Is: "What is stopping us from growing?"

II. One Reason: It is DEAD!

1. Look at a brown plant. It is dead. Can't grow.

2. Church tradition bound = dead.

3. Church at "Defeated Gap" at Centerville, TN

4. We do not need recipes - WE NEED RESURRECTION!

III. Every church comes to Kadesh -- that decisive moment where we either go forward or backward.

1. Always minor decisions to make.

2. Come to a MAJOR decision = Kadesh

3. Easier to know when you have just been there than when it is approaching.

1. See page 53, "Pyramid Principle"

2. Take a careful look at the attendance records.

3. We have been to Kadesh.

IV. Hebrews 12:2 – There are two requirements

1. Lay aside all the things that impede.

2. Examine self for the sin that slows.

"Having laid aside every impediment and the sin that so easily walls us in, with determination we should run the race lying before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the one who begins our faith and brings it to a successful completion."

YOU'VE BEEN TO KADESH WHEN:

1. Someone says, "My house is just before you get to the cliff." Go over cliff and say, "That was Charlie's house."

2. Only half of the church comes back on Sunday night.

3. Before a game, the coach suggests prayer. "Are we really that bad?"

4. Someone says, "Amen", "Preach on", "Praise the Lord." Usher says, "We don't praise the Lord in this church."

5. Six year asks out loud during the sermon, "Is he live or on tape?"

6. The congregation leaves the front pews empty.

7. The hard of hearing turn off their earphones.

8. The congregation ceases to grow.

From The Pyramid Principle of Church Growth, by David A. Womack, page 53.