Getting Close to The Church of Acts

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
-Acts 5:42

House Churches

Mary’s: “When he [Peter] realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who is called Mark, where there were many people gathered in prayer” (Acts 12:12).

Lydia’s: “When they [Paul and Silas] had come out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house where they saw and encouraged the brothers, and then they left” (Acts 16:40).

Prisca and Aquila’s: “Greet Prisca and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus…greet also the church at their house” (Romans 16:3,5).

Nympha’s: “Give greetings to the brothers in Laodicea and to Nympha and to the church in her house” (Colossians 4:15).

Philemon and Apphia’s: “Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon, our beloved and our co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church at your house” (Philemon verses 1-2).

-condensed references; click here for full article at Franciscan Media.

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This is our tenth time with John Fischer at The Catch. Click the title below for the full article:

Church, 2020

Think about the amount of trust in the Holy Spirit there had to be in the formation of the early church. Especially after the persecution scattered believers all over the region. Groups of believers were springing up everywhere. All of them were preaching the Good News about Jesus and people were being added daily to the faith. It would have been impossible to monitor all those groups. These were not Bible Study Cell Groups with a form of centralized leadership and a notebook and video for the host to follow. There was no curriculum. There was no New Testament, at least in the very beginning. Later on Paul would write his letters to the young churches, and I’m sure those were copied and passed around, but in the beginning the church was made up of informal groups of people meeting in homes, many of them separated from sanctioned leadership. And if the book of Acts says they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, that means there was an apostle there teaching them! Kid you not.

I have a feeling it was something like this that the Lord had in mind for the church all along — an organic group of people coming together to pray, share whatever they knew of the apostles’ teaching, eat together, meet each other’s needs, and remember the Lord’s death and resurrection until He returns. Buildings and budgets, bishops and bureaucracies were nowhere in the original plan. I know that sounds pretty loosey-goosey, but that’s why the Holy Spirit was holding it all together. They could feel the reality of the Holy Spirit. Is church a praise band and a sermon, or four or five people around a table at Starbucks? It may not necessarily be either one, but the one around the table is closer to the earliest model.

Marti has had numerous discipleship groups over the years and lately, she’s been able to do it over Google hangout on the Internet. I’ve walked in on the tail end of this a number of nights and I can tell you it’s the closest thing to church I know of. They are learning and growing, crying and laughing, and depending on the Holy Spirit through each other’s gifts. You can go to a megachurch and never have this. You can go to an ornate cathedral and never have this. This is why we’re looking again at the formation of the early church. It’s renewal time. It’s honesty time. It’s raw. It’s real time. It’s strip-down-to-the-basics time. It’s what we want. It’s what the millennials want, and I believe it’s what the Lord wanted all along. Whatever else we have that has come to be identified as “church” are the trappings of church we’ve created over the years — little of it biblical, much of it cultural and traditional. Even what we have on Sunday nights on Facebook is closer to the Acts church than what you can experience each week in a typical church service today. If you don’t need the Holy Spirit to hold it together, then it’s going to be held together by something else. Wouldn’t you rather have the Holy Spirit?

Church, 2020 is not going to be much different than Church, 31, and that’s the way it should be.

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Bonus item: Here’s a classic John Fischer song, Righteous Man.

Living the Red Letters

For the past few nights our family has been working its way through The Red Letters a 6-part DVD series produced by World Vision Canada, in preparation for my reviewing it at Thinking Out Loud. The video features outspoken author and speaker Tony Campolo being interviewed by Colin McCartney, director of Urban Promise in Toronto, and author of Red Letter Revolution. If you know Tony, and you noted the title of Colin’s book, the combination of Campolo and McCartney on the subject of Jesus’ teachings is going to produce a thought-provoking video curriculum.

But last night I decided to venture into some of the recommended websites and discovered Colin McCartney’s blog at RedLetterInfo.com including this post from a few days ago:

Last night I had the privilege to worship with a group of young believers at a house church in Anaheim, California. It was a refreshing time for me being with these vibrant Christians and hearing them share about their journey with Jesus all within such a caring environment. The majority of the believers in this simple house church are from total unchurched backgrounds so to worship with them was a real treat. I was especially impressed by the fact that every one of them worshipped and shared from their hearts. The honesty and intimacy present within the living room of this house church was contagious. Grace permeated throughout the room and it was obvious to me that this was a safe place to come and meet Jesus no matter who you are or what you have done.

 Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name there I will be among you.”  (Matthew 18:20) Jesus was among us in that house last night. That’s one of the things I like the best about Jesus – he loves to be with his people and especially those who hurt. He does not restrict himself  to the mantras of professional clergy nor does he limit himself to only making appearances in sacred church buildings.  He is not into religious posturing or rituals. No, he is present in the simplicity of the poor (“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” – Matthew 25:40) and the gathering of two or three or more of us meeting together in a living room of a house in Anaheim, California.

 While we worshipped there was no “proper” worship protocol that is present in so many of our church services today. There was no evident “order of service”, no special musical arrangements with guest singers and there was no passing of the gold coloured offering plates for our tithes and offerings (though we did pass a baseball cap around that was a little sweaty and dirty as it came from the head of one of the folks attending the house church). Needless to say what happened last night was raw, rootsy and real. People shared how their week had went and I was amazed how many of these people talked about the times they shared their faith and cared for others especially the poor. People spoke about loved ones who were now homeless. Youth asked for prayer for their freinds who are cutting themselves with razors. Best of all were the groanings that rose from the mouths of everyone in that room when they prayed for God’s intercession in their lives and in the lives of those they know.  When it came time for me to share the Word I had a captive audience hungry, willing and thirsting to learn from the Scriptures. Now that is a church!

 I loved last night because this is what I always dream and pray about – to see a movement of Christians in love with Jesus, embodying his “red letters” in word and deed, just simply living out their faith. This sounds like the New Testament church to me and it is to this form of missional movement that I have committed myself to.  I seek to work with churches who are committed to activate their people to this kind of “red letter” missional lifestyle where they challenge their people to “go”!  I also dream of church plants being birthed naturally and organically in homes, community centers, prisons, bars and wherever else “Red Letter” Christians do mission. It’s that simple yet it is so rare!  All it takes for this to happen is for us to go! So, what is holding us back? 

Since Colin ended with a question, here again is the link where you can post your response.

“We Went to Starbucks and Had Church”

We live in more confusing times than, perhaps, Christians a generation ago.   When people say, “We went for a walk in the park and talked about God.   For us, that was Church;” does that work for you, or do you feel like perhaps they’re missing out on something?

Frank Viola suggests there are seven tests which “The Postchurch” needs to face:

1. The Original Language Test
2. The Epistle Test
3. The Visitation Test
4. The Narrative Reading Test
5. The Consistency Test
6. The One-Anothering Test
7. The Purposes of God Test

Today’s post here is a link to a rather lengthy article which breaks this down.   I tried to find this on Frank’s blog, but I’ll start you off where I found it, with this re-post at the blog Change Room.

Here’s the link.  You don’t want to miss this.>