The passage at the end of Acts 2 says a lot of what we need to know about how God designed church. Luke tells us there were four things happening: teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers.
Then he adds to this that they were in the habit of being together and sharing their possessions as any had need, eating and breaking bread together in their homes.
The results were evident: wonders, signs and mass conversions.
If we work backward from the standard model of church in our western culture, we may find we have to make more changes than we thought to get back to what they had.
Some things we still get. We have teaching (though often not good enough), we have prayer (though often not powerful enough) and and we have the Lord’s Supper (though often not observed enough).
But what about this word koinonia or fellowship? Put simply, it means a life in common, a shared life. And that’s where we fail. All too often, church consists of a Sunday service with teaching, worship and prayer. And that’s it. All too often, I’ve heard the story of people who attended a church for months and no one ever reached out to them on other than a superficial basis. When they left, no one contacted them.
Fellowship, a shared life, is critical, not optional. It’s at the heart of church as it’s supposed to be. Jesus modelled it during the three years of his ministry. I realize we can’t all sell our homes and live communally, and I don’t think that’s what God wants. But we need to get back in touch with what it means to have a shared life in the body of Christ.
I could be wrong, but I think the lack of community is why teaching often falls short. When a church is operating as a strong relational network — a family — truth can be spoken more easily and more deeply. I think it’s also why prayer falls short. Strong mutual relationships correlate with a strong relationship with God. And I think it’s where we fall short on the Lord’s Supper. Biblically, it was observed regularly because it was observed wherever people were eating and having fellowship together.
And I think it has something to do with the lack of conversions. People are looking to be connected, looking for a family to be part of. We live in a society more fragmented and isolated than ever before in our culture. And that was before 2020.
We have an opportunity we haven’t seen since the days of the Jesus movement. The Woodstock culture had a lot of unfortunate results, but it did have one thing: it offered people personal connection and relationship. And when Christians began to discover that’s just what they had, revival was the result and millions, including me, were swept into the kingdom.
A different kind of Woodstock moment has arrived. If we can rediscover our Biblical roots, no amount of church buildings will accommodate the people who want in. But if we miss it, our chance to touch the nations we live in will be lost for at least a generation.
Dr. Luke gave us a prescription for revival. Let’s take it.
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AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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