Why did church growth stall? Pastor Blair Lemke starts with a grammar puzzle — a misplaced comma in Luke 23:43 ("today you will be with me in paradise") — to show how easily we misread Scripture, then applies the same care to Ephesians 4:11-16. Depending on the translation, it sounds like pastors are supposed to do all the ministry themselves. But read in context, the passage says the opposite: pastors are there to equip members for the work, not replace them.

Tracing Seventh-day Adventist history from 1886 to today, Lemke shows how the church's fastest growth happened when ministers weren't "settled" over congregations but were out evangelizing, while members ran their own churches — and how growth slowed as that model was quietly abandoned. His challenge: less preaching, more teaching; less watching, more working.

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