10.7.2026

We started this newsletter back in the early days of Covid to keep us connected. We couldn’t meet in person for worship or for Bible studies, so we had FaceBook live for worship, and I wrote the Pastor’s Note on Wednesday as a substitute for a mid-week study. 

I’ve had a couple of complaints recently that my Pastor’s Notes are too long. So, I’m going to make an effort to make these shorter and maybe more to the point. 

Love God. Love others. 

That’s how the early Church grew! It was their patiently living a Christ-like life in front of their co-workers and neighbors that led those same co-workers and neighbors to ask the believers why they lived the way they did. And people were converted, and Christianity grew. 

Slowly. Patiently. 

We read the early chapters of Acts, with thousands coming to Christ in one day but that was not the normal experience! It wasn’t even normal beyond the first few chapters of Acts! Remember that the congregations Paul wrote all those letters to were only about 25 to 35 people. All the Christians in the period when the New Testament was written wouldn’t fill a stadium. 

Historian Rodney Stark estimated the spread of Christianity: 

        Year            Estimated # of Christians        % of Roman empire (about 60 Million)
        40 AD                            ~1,000                                            0.007%
        100 AD                          ~7,500                                            0.0126%
        150 AD                          ~40,000                                          0.07%
        200 AD                         ~218,000                                        0.36%
        250 AD                         ~1.17 million                                   1.9%
        300 AD                        ~6.3 million                                   10.5%

From about 1,000 to about 6.3 million in 200 years! If we were to look just another 50 years, we’d be about 34 million — over half of the Roman Empire. That  might sound like a huge leap but it’s really not. In fact, the church’s growth was rising only by 3.4% per year. 

But when you look at the math (Did I just type that?? Obviously, I’m relying on someone else’s work),  for every 30 Christians, the early church gained one believer annually. Apply that to Christ Church, and you’d see growth of one new member every year.  

What were they doing in the meantime? Faithfully worshiping together, faithfully fellowshipping together, faithfully spending time studying and memorizing the scriptures, faithfully loving God and faithfully loving others. 

Ordinary Christian faithfulness, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving others paints a beautiful portrait of biblical Christianity. 

Which has been the point of my last several Pastor’s Notes. Christianity spread by faithful Christians living faithfully and patiently allowing God to do the work both in them and through them. In fact, early believers didn’t feel called to convert the world but to be the world converted by Jesus. The growth would come from God. 

But the key was faithfulness on their part. It wasn’t miracles or martyrs. It was what God wanted from his people from the Garden of Eden until now: Faithfulness. 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry