Acts 17:11 The Original Church Marketing Plan

How did God get people talking in the first century to kick off his new Church building program? It is different than what we do today for sure. Take a look at the analysis in the article- God's Church Growth Program in the First Century:

"Imagine the foolishness of God. He initiates the birth of the church by supernaturally striking dead two generous, if dishonest, contributors right in front of everyone. We tend to stylize and flannelgraph this situation in our minds. But imagine you had really been there and this had happened to someone you knew in the fellowship. Imagine the practical problems of having a couple of corpses on your hands, the general mood, the thought of how you were going to explain this to the authorities, the appreciation of how serious and intense it is to really be in God's presence, and the deep sense of the fear of God that would naturally be the result.

Word spread: 'That is not the place to go if you are playing around. God is there.' Among the Christians, duplicitous people were struck dead, after all. Not a place to trifle with religion, that is for sure.

Let us jump into the text now, after this rather 'negative' miracle and see what God did by and through it.

Acts 5:11,13-14 (NIV) Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events... No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

There is our 'church growth' verse, in context."

I would like to see myself or another Church marketing guy pitching this idea to a committee.