Church Growing Pains: Lessons from Acts 6:1–7
Listen
hese are my notes from a sermon at my church Lakewood Baptist Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
If you would like to listen to the full sermon, you can do so here.
Every healthy church wants to grow. More people hearing the Gospel, more lives changed, more disciples sent out into the world. But growth has a cost. It stretches systems, strains relationships, and exposes weaknesses that went unnoticed when things were smaller.
Acts 6:1–7 captures one of those painful stretching moments in the early Church. What happened there—and how the apostles responded—still speaks directly to churches and Christians today. This passage shows us that growth-related problems are not signs of failure. They are invitations to become more faithful, more organized, and more dependent on God.
Choosing of the Seven — Acts 6:1–7 (NASB)
¹ Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. ² So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. ³ Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. ⁴ But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” ⁵ The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. ⁶ And these they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them.
⁷ The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.
A Church on the Move
When Acts 6 opens, the Jerusalem church is surging. From 120 believers in an upper room (Acts 1:15), to 3,000 added at Pentecost (Acts 2:41), to multitudes joining after that (Acts 5:14)—the numbers kept climbing. By Acts 6:1, Luke tells us the disciples were “increasing in number.”
None of this was accidental. Jesus had told His followers to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Gospel was doing exactly what it was meant to do: spreading. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) calls every generation of believers to make disciples—not through clever programs, but through faithful teaching and honest proclamation of who Jesus is and what He has done.
We should want this for our own churches. Pray for it. Celebrate baptisms and new believers. Rejoice when people step into service and are sent out. That kind of growth pleases God.
The Problem: Growth Exposed a Crack
But growth isn’t painless. Like a family that outgrows its house, the Jerusalem church was running into real problems. Acts 6:1 tells us: “A complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.”
This was the first major internal conflict in the early Church—and it struck at the heart of who they were supposed to be.
Some background helps here. The Old Testament commanded God’s people to care for widows, orphans, and foreigners (Deuteronomy 24:19–21), reminding Israel that they themselves had once been slaves in Egypt and had received God’s mercy. The New Testament carries this forward. James writes that “pure and undefiled religion” involves “visiting orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27), and Paul instructs churches to “honor widows who are widows indeed” (1 Timothy 5:3–16).
In first-century Jerusalem, widows were especially at risk. Many had moved to the city in their later years and depended on the synagogue system—regular food distributions called the “koopa”—to survive. When these women trusted in Christ, they were cut off from that support. The Church stepped in and began providing for them, as it should.
But as the number of believers grew, the system couldn’t keep up. The complaint came from Hellenists—Greek-speaking Jews from outside Israel—who said their widows were being passed over while Aramaic-speaking Hebrew widows were served first. Whether this was deliberate bias or simple oversight, the effect was the same: people who were supposed to be cared for were being forgotten.
The stakes were high. Jesus had said the world would know His followers by their love for one another (John 13:35). John would later write, “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17–18). If the Church couldn’t bridge the gap between Jews who spoke different languages and came from different backgrounds, how would it ever welcome Gentiles? The vision of Galatians 3:28—“there is neither Jew nor Greek”—and of Christ breaking down the dividing wall between peoples (Ephesians 2:14–16) was at risk before it even fully began.
This is still true today. When a church grows, cracks appear. Systems that worked for fifty people break down at two hundred. Cultural tensions rise. Leaders get stretched thin. The question is never whether problems will come—it’s whether we will address them honestly or let them quietly tear us apart.
The Solution: Wise Delegation, Qualified Servants
The apostles didn’t ignore the complaint, and they didn’t overreact. They called the whole congregation together and said: “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2–4).
This wasn’t arrogance or laziness. The apostles had likely been handling food distribution themselves up to this point. But their calling from Jesus (Acts 1:8) was to preach the resurrection and teach the Scriptures. Even a good task like feeding widows—“serving tables,” from the Greek word diakonein, the root of our word “deacon”—could pull them away from the work only they were equipped to do. They recognized that trying to do everything meant doing the most important things poorly.
So they delegated—but not carelessly. The congregation chose seven men: Stephen (described as full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas (a convert from Antioch). Every one of them has a Greek name. Think about that. The Hebrew-majority church trusted the solution entirely to men from the community that raised the complaint. That’s not token representation. That’s genuine trust.
And the qualifications mattered. These men needed a good reputation (Proverbs 22:1)—people others could vouch for. They needed to be full of the Holy Spirit, showing the fruit of the Spirit in their daily lives: love, patience, kindness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). And they needed wisdom—not just intelligence, but the skill of applying God’s truth to real situations (James 3:13–18). These weren’t just warm bodies filling a role. They were proven, Spirit-led servants.
The apostles then laid hands on them and prayed over them publicly (Acts 6:6), marking the seriousness of the task. This pattern became the model for deacons in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:8–13; Philippians 1:1)—trusted servants who protect the unity of the church, meet the practical needs of its people, and free the pastors and elders to focus on prayer and preaching (2 Timothy 4:1–2).
This echoes Jethro’s advice to Moses in Exodus 18: no leader can carry everything alone. Delegation isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom. And it works best when the people doing the serving are chosen for their character, not their personality or popularity.
The Result: The Word Kept Spreading
What happened next is remarkable: “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).
Notice the acceleration. In verse 1, the disciples were “increasing.” By verse 7, they were “increasing greatly.” The word of God itself is described as “spreading”—as if it were alive and moving on its own. And it is. Scripture calls it living and active (Hebrews 4:12), and in Acts 19:20 Luke says the word of the Lord “was growing mightily and prevailing.”
Perhaps the most striking detail: “a great many of the priests” came to faith. These were men embedded in the temple system, the very system that had opposed Jesus. What moved them? Surely the preaching of the apostles. But also, quite possibly, the visible love of a church that organized itself to care for forgotten widows. Doctrine and compassion together are a powerful witness.
When the practical challenges were handled wisely, the Gospel advanced further and faster. That’s the pattern. Good organization doesn’t compete with spiritual mission—it clears the path for it.
Three Lessons for the Church Today
- Keep the Word of God at the center.
The ministry of the Word is what everything else depends on. Paul tells Timothy that all Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16–17) and charges him to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). The Word should saturate every ministry a church runs—from the pulpit to the children’s classroom. Elders must be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2). Without faithful teaching, compassion loses its anchor, structures become hollow, and service leads to exhaustion. Pray for the ministry of the Word in your church. Guard it. Never let it become an afterthought.
- Caring for the vulnerable is not optional.
Paul writes, “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6:10). What we see in Acts 6 is the Church in its earliest days already organizing to care for people who had no one else to turn to. As the Church matured, Paul gave Timothy detailed instructions on how to honor widows wisely and sustainably (1 Timothy 5:3–16). Today the specifics look different—we have government safety nets that didn’t exist in the first century—but the responsibility hasn’t changed. The Church is still called to care for its own. And when the world sees believers meeting real needs alongside proclaiming real truth, the Gospel gains credibility it could never earn through words alone.
- Pursue godly character and faithful service.
The qualifications given for the seven—good reputation, full of the Spirit, full of wisdom—aren’t just for deacons. They describe what every believer should be growing toward (Ephesians 4:11–16). Ask yourself honestly: Am I someone others can trust? Am I allowing the Spirit to shape my attitudes and responses? Am I learning to apply Scripture wisely to the situations I face? Proverbs is full of this kind of practical wisdom, and James 3:13–18 describes the difference between earthly and heavenly wisdom. Character isn’t built overnight, but it is built deliberately. Deacons are not lesser leaders—they are trusted servants who strengthen the whole body. Pursue character not for a title, but because it’s what Christ is forming in you.
Growing Forward
Acts 6 is a reminder that growth and difficulty often arrive together. The early Church didn’t collapse under pressure—it organized, delegated, and kept its eyes on what mattered most. The result was a church that grew deeper in love and wider in reach.
The same is possible for us. Keep the Word central. Care for the people in front of you. Raise up servants of proven character. And trust that when we do our part faithfully, God does what only He can do—He makes the word spread and the Church grow.
Pray for that. Work toward it. And when the growing pains come—because they will—receive them as a sign that God is on the move, and an invitation to follow Him more closely.