Yesterday, we explored how a church community is meant to be a gathering, sometimes even just for fun and fellowship.
You might think church has always meant a religious gathering of Christians on Sunday morning. But in the Bible’s Greek language, church had another meaning before that. The Greek word for church is ekklesia which literally means “an assembly” or “gathering of people”. But not just for its own good. It’s called out to be and do something specific. This week’s passage says gathering together is not just for encouragement to love, but for encouragement to good works.
We are meant to be a preview of the world as God wants it to be. We are meant to make people say wow. Unlike the church I described yesterday, people are supposed to look at our community (even at its business meetings) and say, “Wow! That’s how we are supposed to relate with each other, and our world, and God. I can see it now!” They are meant to see the Kingdom of God in us.
Aristides was a philosopher in Athens in the second century and he observed the first Christians, the early church, and this is what he recorded about them in 125 AD.
“They walk in humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them. They love one another. He that has distributes liberally to him that does not have. If they see a stranger they bring him under their own roof and rejoice over him as if he were their own brother.”
Aristides looked at that first church, that earliest gathering of Christians and he said WOW.
Have you ever looked at a team, group or organization and said, wow? Why? Think of the Snowbirds, or a great dance troupe.
Our church today meant to make people say wow…because of our generosity and love of one another, that spills over to the lives of others near us.
We’re intending to becoming this kind of church through our discussion groups first, and also when our discussion groups come together as one community for celebration.
Challenge: If you’re not already meeting with a group, please do. What act of generosity and service can you do with your discussion group, or family, that will make others in your life say wow? Think of one thing internal to your group that you do for each other, and one thing your group does for others.
Reminder: Last week we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Look down at your hands. Chances are you’re holding an Apple device. Well over ¾ of Redeem the Commute’s mobile users use Apple devices. It’s incredible technology that has ended up in the hands of millions quite quickly. It’s more powerful than computers in the space shuttle that put humans into orbit, yet we mostly use it to crush candies and fly birds into buildings.
We take it for granted, we know iPods, iPhones, iPads have been around long enough we forget how they came to be. Whose idea was this? How did they do it? How did they market it so effectively? How did they become such a high theft item? How did they travel the world?
Answering those questions is why there’s been so much fascination with the life of Steve Jobs. Many an article, a feature film, and more have been produced.
We love our founding stories. In the story of Steve Jobs and his garage startup, you can find the character of Apple the company. The ingenuity, the creativity, the resolve and drive, the secrecy, and the mystique. Even as other leaders have their turn leading the company after his death, they always have his legacy to contend with.
As we walk the streets of Western countries, we can get used to seeing church buildings – big and small, traditional and contemporary architecture, Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, and more.
But how did they get here? Why are there church buildings, much less people who build, maintain and use them?
I used to pastor four churches in Eastern Ontario, and one was a very old church. When I arrived, they were about to celebrate what they thought was their 150th anniversary, but while I was there, we discovered that was wrong. The bricks and mortar were indeed 150 years old, but the church was in fact much older than their building.
The church is a community of people learning to follow Jesus. And in the days of early pioneers, this community was meeting in a tavern, then a hall and a school before they ever built a structure of their own. They met in those spaces because they could learn about Jesus together as a community.
We had to go back to our founding stories, and our founding figures to realize we were much more than a building…we were a church…we were supposed to be all about Jesus. We needed to be shaped by our founding story, and our founding pioneer – Jesus Christ.
That building is being closed in less than a month, but the church will carry on. They’ve joined with the other nearby churches to follow Jesus together in another building.
As we talk about Redeem the Commute becoming a church community, we aren’t talking about a building either, we’re talking about a community shaped by our founding pioneer Jesus. The book of Acts in the Bible tells the founding story of those who established church communities after his death and resurrection to keep following him.
In this series, we’ll be looking at that pioneer story, how the first Christians survived, thrived, and organized. We’ll read through the highlights of the Book of Acts.
You can do this as an individual watching the videos each day and discussing with others as you go, or we have a new option if you’re meeting weekly with a group. You can watch the videos each day, but we’ll also produce a weekly small group study guide with all the week’s Bible readings and questions in one place.
Question: Tell your pioneer story to someone. This can be as simple as explaining how the lifestyle choices and priorities that you do are based on the teachings of Jesus, or why you dedicate time to Redeem the Commute’s challenges.
