23 JUN 23 Friday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and fellowship, and to sharing meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.” Acts 2: 42
The section of Acts 2 of our reading plan is a great place to learn about the marks of a healthy church and healthy disciples. This is the most basic recipe of a church. There were no buildings, professional clergy, budgets, or programs. When most of us look for a church or those that are not believers look at a church they see these things.
If they have up-to-date facilities with nice bathrooms, children and youth programs, professional staff to our liking, and money to pull all of that off, sign me up. You might think I was describing the YMCA or some club if you didn’t know I was talking about a church. That is the sad part about this today. We have come to expect the church to serve our needs versus us submitting to God’s rule and obeying his ways.
Form follows function as some great businessmen would say. What you produce depends on how you are designed to function. A pastor friend scratches his head and wonders why people are not making disciples and living for Jesus even though they talk about it every Sunday. He asks, what is wrong with them? It’s actually “how” they do church that produces observers and consumers, rather than producers and doers of the word. Doing church and being the church are vastly different things and are not a game of semantics.
If you want someone who is a faith practitioner versus an attendee, you must change the process. The early church didn’t have to keep people entertained and satisfied, they were a training center that prepared people to live for Jesus, be on a mission, and enjoy one another. The end product was a people who were disciple-making practitioners that multiplied wherever they went.
Is the church producing what it was designed for?
No comments:
Post a Comment