MINISTRY//Celebrate spiritual growth

The faculty members for 316NOW Bible institute rejoice when our student demonstrate they know how to apply what they have learned. Here's a recent example.

An opportunity to grow in numbers

A group of Christian leaders that comes to 316NOW’s Bible institute for training has formed an independent church. However, the local Christian Council that oversees the churches in their area is aware of them.

The Council asked a nearby church to disband and urged them to join the church 316NOW works with.  At first, it seemed like a wonderful way for the church whose leaders we teach to grow.

An opportunity to grow spiritually

But we urged that, before the two churches combine, the leaders of the church we work with needed to investigate what the nearby church taught about God’s Word.

What they found was that the nearby church believed that Christians are no longer sinners. They reasoned that, because Jesus totally redeemed them, they have no sins remaining in their lives. The nearby church taught that, if Christians can identify sins in their lives, they don’t have faith in what Jesus has done for them.

An opportunity to stand for truth

Because of this false teaching, the church 316NOW mentors realized they had to decline the offer to combine with the other church. They could not accept that church’s faulty teaching and, certainly, could not allow that church’s leadership to influence the faith of their church.

What you can do: Ask the Spirit to continue to work through 316NOW so that increasing numbers of Christian leaders in China grow in the knowledge of the Scriptures, as well as in their ability to discern how to apply what they’ve learned.