These startups grow by attracting a lot of visitors. In companies like "Twitter" or "Facebook" or even "Google", visitors don't usually pay anything for using the companies services, yet these companies have become very profitable, in part because they can sell advertising to a large captive audience.
I want to suggest the early church operated a lot like a "startup."
Why do these companies become so popular -- it's because they meet a very useful and powerful need-- in the case of "Google" -- the need to find information quickly. In the case of "Twitter" or "Facebook", the desire to "broadcast" yourself to others rapidly.
Popular startups can meet real needs but sometimes fade away -- remember how popular MySpace was a few years ago?
However a startup that remains and becomes an established business has meet a fundamental need (or desire) that wasn't met (or didn't know we had). Can you imagine how useful Amazon and Google are for us today, can you imagine living without these services now?
In the same way the Church grew very rapidly after Pentecost because Christ's message meets a very deep need inherent in all of us -- the deep-seated (but oft-discounted) need for forgiveness, and a reconnection to the divine. It's a need many of us don't realize we have, until we are transformed by the Gospel message and we cannot imagine a life now apart without Christ.
1 Timothy 1:15 "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all."
1 Phillipians 3: 7-8 "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ."
(Both references are from the New American Standard Bible translation)
Why do these companies become so popular -- it's because they meet a very useful and powerful need-- in the case of "Google" -- the need to find information quickly. In the case of "Twitter" or "Facebook", the desire to "broadcast" yourself to others rapidly.
Popular startups can meet real needs but sometimes fade away -- remember how popular MySpace was a few years ago?
However a startup that remains and becomes an established business has meet a fundamental need (or desire) that wasn't met (or didn't know we had). Can you imagine how useful Amazon and Google are for us today, can you imagine living without these services now?
In the same way the Church grew very rapidly after Pentecost because Christ's message meets a very deep need inherent in all of us -- the deep-seated (but oft-discounted) need for forgiveness, and a reconnection to the divine. It's a need many of us don't realize we have, until we are transformed by the Gospel message and we cannot imagine a life now apart without Christ.
1 Timothy 1:15 "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all."
And
(Both references are from the New American Standard Bible translation)
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