What makes a successful church? Is it a large number of people attending every week? A massive budget? A good looking church building? Lots of programmes and activities? That sounds more like a business than a church. Paul would not likely consider those marks of a successful church.
What then would Paul consider a successful church? Thankfully we have an answer in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian Church. Paul’s idea of a church that is successful, one that he liked to boast about to other churches, is one where its members grow in faith and love. That growth equips them for God’s service, and allows them to ensure hardship.
Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica continues developing themes which Paul and the congregation there discussed in his first letter. It was likely written around 51AD, within a relatively short period after his first letter.
Paul’s opening to the congregation there is extremely similar to his greeting in his first letter. “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (vv.1-2).
As in Paul’s first letter, he also greeted them on behalf of his missionary companions Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy. However, in 2 Thessalonians Paul speaks of God as not just the Father of Jesus, but as our Father. In the same way, the source of grace and peace is explicitly said to be from both the Father and Jesus.
In these verses, Paul reminded the Thessalonians that as believers they were adopted into God’s family. The Father was not just the Son’s father, but was their father by adoption too. They too were children of God.
Secondly, the source of God’s favour and peace was not just Jesus, who had purchased it on their behalf by his life of perfect obedience and his perfect sacrifice, but God the Father who sent the Son on this saving mission.
Grace and peace flow to his children, through Jesus Christ. This flow comes from their faith, which unites them to Christ and makes them God’s beloved children by adoption.
Paul then spoke of how he ought always to give thanks to God because “your faith is growing abundantly” (v.3). Their faith was not stagnant, nor was it wilting and shrinking, but growing more and more, like the camellia in our front garden which this summer finally decided to take off.
Secondly, Paul spoke of giving thanks to God because “the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (v.3). The Thessalonians were more than just club members, they were family. In the same way we encourage our children to demonstrate love and care towards each other, so too they should love each other more as siblings in God’s household.
That they were doing so was an indication of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. God as the true source or proper, ordered love, was working in them to help them love each other more, just as the Holy Spirit was working in their lives to grow their faith.
This growth in faith and love was important. It gave them “steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (v.4). When the difficulties of life came upon them, as it always does, they did not wilt and wither but trusted in God’s goodness and relied on it to carry them through.
It was this steadfastness and faith in the face of troubles which caused Paul, Silas, and Timothy to “boast about you in the churches of God” (v.4) as an example to them and to give glory to God. Not buildings, bodies, and budgets.
The same is true for the church today. We are tempted to fall into our modern, economic and consumer-minded ways and assume that successful churches have large facilities, great numbers of attendees, or massive annual budgets. While these things can be a blessing to a congregation of God’s people, and those in that position should constantly thank God and consider how to glorify God with those resources, what makes a church successful is actually how it relates to God and to each other – God’s adopted children.
Any church, big or small in resources and people, is a successful church if it is one which encourages growing in faith and in love for one another. These churches do that which pleases God – worship and glorify him, in good times and bad – and that is what we ought to do. That is what caused Paul the apostle to boast in his day, and should encourage us in ours.
Paul’s encouragement towards growth in faith in love tells us what is important. That we do the same. Through dwelling in God’s Word daily, through prayer and renewed trust each day, and through loving each other. As we trust God our Father more, our faith and love will grow, and we will be strengthened to endure difficulties, steadfast in Jesus Christ.