portrait of authentic church

If we take all we can glean from the Bible picture of 1st century church, it wouldn't resemble our modern day church.

at all.

Specifically with respect to the account Dr Luke provides in the very last part of Acts 2, we don't even pretend to imitate most of his description:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved"

So.... how am I doin' with that? how 'bout your 'church'... let's see:

• devoted to apostles doctrine and fellowship - not devoted, really
• communal living - no
• meeting and eating in each other's homes - occasionally
• outward focus, helping others - somewhat
• meeting daily for praise - no
• favorably viewed by the people - a little bit, maybe
• daily numerical growth - no
• 'turned the world upside down' (Acts 17:6) - hardly
  

so what do we do with that? is it important?

Maybe we could say that today's church is our 21st century version of that.

maybe... but even if we scrape away what we deem to be 'cultural' or completely unreasonable for us today, there is a LOT in the last half dozen verses of Acts 2 which we better pay attention to, right?

I mean, we gotta be more devoted and committed to the Jesus story (apostles doctrine)...

and we must have an outward focus (give to those in need)...

our addiction to our church buildings probably won't let us, but we might wanna consider the meeting in homes deal, right? (probably THE most important aspect of this whole 'authentic' thing, since building-based-religion is the antithesis of authentic 'church')

When we ask ourselves why God isn't blessing our church with the 'daily numerical growth' we read about here, don't we have to consider it's because we are not doing it right?

Does anyone have the courage to truly imitate this model? Obviously I don't. Otherwise I would stop writing and start doing!

Authentic Community is real and organic and natural. It is probably best depicted by the planting of a tree or shrub. think about it... how do we do that: I mean, how do we plant a tree or shrub or flower or squash plant? well, we cultivate the ground and place a seed in that tilled soil. we water it (or God does, if you live in Northern Arkansas during the past few days!). then... well, there's a lot of waiting... God provides the sunshine. And -remember this part - God has put in place tons of natural 'plant-growing' laws which most of us don't understand.... naturally occurring events which we have NOTHING to do with... we will do a lot cultivating... and we might clear away the weeds and keep away the critters... but God does everything else! naturally! and the plant grows.

beautiful!

Our model of 'planting' a church is so foreign to the organic 'planting' of a tree or shrub, it is unrecognizable as anything approaching 'natural'.

instead, we build a building, put our sign out, hire a preacher and, like Kevin Costner in 'Field of Dreams', we wait for them to come.

but sadly, this is not a movie... and though they do come (mostly in Pavlovian response to cultural norms, and sometimes in sincere response to the Spirit's tug to seek out 'something more'), the authentic nature of true Christian Community is never realized. ...and before long we are wringing our hands over those who have disappeared from our 'attendance roles'... we form visitation teams to visit those who have stopped coming to 'church'! And we wonder why their interest and excitement waned. (or, in an evil twist, we blame them for lack of commitment!)

and all along, we have no one to blame but ourselves... because these 'disappearers' were plugged in to religion and not to Jesus; we assimilated them into our denomination but not into authentic Christian community! We completely ignore the Acts 2 example of organic church.

all because we are trying to artificially create something that MUST happen organically! imagine trying to make the tree or plant grow faster... THAT'S what most of us are doing with 'church'. We add buildings and budgets and committees and programs... and rules to govern all that; we hire preachers and youth ministers and, oh yeah, it's time to add on or renovate the building, which affects the budget and requires more committees and rules... and probably more hiring of more people.... we argue over inane things like what songs to sing (or not sing) during our assemblies... we complain about the quality of 'preachin'... and we stagnate.... of course we do! after all, how 'organic' does any of that sound to you?

and before you know it, we are like every other 'church' in every other town in every other state in every other country in the world...

and the world remains unchanged. we are not turning anything upside down... how could we? we're doing it wrong. It's almost as if we got mixed up and decided to use the Old Testament 'church' model - Physical Temple Theology - instead of the New Testament model - Spiritual Temple Theology.

what would it look like if a dozen families committed to imitate this model for one year? if 12 courageous families devoted themselves to inviting friends (natural) into their home for food and prayer and study and fellowship....

what if, each week, those 12 'home churches' attracted (organically) a few folks to their gathering on, say, a Sunday night (or Monday evening, the day doesn't matter!)...

what if those 12 'shepherd/planters' would commit to meet with each other at least once a week to discuss weighty things about how their particular gatherings were progressing?

and, what if those 12 'house churches' decided to all meet together on Sunday for their 1st-day-of-the-week gathering and worshipped and shared and broke bread (in communion AND then a meal)?

what would it be like?

(it might look like a church which began organically with small groups; it might look like our 1st Century counterparts...)

oh, well... just dreamin'

none of us (me at the top of the list) are likely to muster the courage to actually act on any of this.

so.... see you Sunday at 'church'.