A Model Church

Recently, I was asked by a man in my congregation with whom I meet on a regular basis, "What is your image of the 'ideal' church." That's not a hard question for me to answer because its one that I have considered over and over again. I keep coming up with the same answer: The church described in Acts 2:42 and the verses that follow: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that belived were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. "

This description describes the 'ideal' church because it is a model that works; in every culture in every generation and while the function of each of the four elements may look or function differently in different settings the essence remains unchanged. Water is made up of a molecule consisting of two essential elements; hydrogen and oxygen. Change the conditions in which it exist and it can be a solid, a gas, or a liquid, but its essence remains the same. Add and element to it and it becomes something other than water. For instance H2O is water, but add an extra molecule of Oxygen and it becomes H2O2 or Hydrogen Peroxide. Add another element such as carbon and it becomes H2CO and it becomes formaldehyde. Likewise, take an element away from it and it becomes something other than water.

The four essential elements that make up the church described here; the Word, fellowship, communion and prayer can function in a variety of expressions and the church remains the church. However, over emphasize one and ignore another - or allow other elements to replace or dwarf these essential elements and its possible you end up with something other than the church. For instance, signs and wonders are mentioned in the context of the Acts church, but as a result the balanced life of the church in action. The early believers were steadfastly pursuing the Word as brought by the apostles, steadfastly pursuing fellowship with their brethren, faithful in breaking bread (I believe this to be sharing communion and properly discerning the Body of Christ) and steadfastly seeking God in corporate and individual prayer and as a result they were the beneficiaries of signs and wonders accompanying their ministry. Conversely, when we observe individuals or groups who pursue the miraculous, the proper handling of the Word of God is often the first victim. The promise of the Scriptures is: "These signs shall follow them that believe;" not, "those that believe shall follow signs." The 'ideal church' pursues the faithful handling of the Word of God and signs and wonders follow.

In a similar manner, the success of the modern church is often measured by the number and variety of meetings available to the membership. The more meetings the better the church. The more variety of speacialized minsitry the more effective the church. We have men's meetings, women's meetings, youth meetings, singles meetings, children's meetings, young adults meetings, boys clubs, girls clubs, and on and on, you get the idea. Most of the meetings require us to go tothe church building where we go in, shut the door and . . . . . meet. . . . with each other. The early church moved with fluidity within the culture from house to house. What we have done is created our own culture which has little contact and no relationship to the culture(s) with which it exists. We criticize the culture, we throw rocks at the culture, we condemn the culture - but we don't contribute anything TO the culture. The church continues to insulate itself from the culture and complain that the culture is godless. Or, we go to the other extreme and become exactly like the culture, not impacting it for the Kingdom of God, but being impacted by the culture of rebellion.

Furthermore, the church has significantly contributed to the already epidemic fragmentation of the family. Somewhere somebody got the idea that if we built strong church ministries the result would be strong families. That idea has not really worked out all that well. We need to bring the family together, not continue to separate. There needs to be intentional fellowship among the saints (such as is fostered in effective small group ministry) and, we need to leave room for members of the body to build effective relationships with those outside the faith, since it is well documented that almost 80% of people affirm that their coming to faith in Christ is the result of long term relationships with a friend or relative. This means that almost nobody comes to faith as the result of "meetings." It is almost always the result of long term meaningful relationships - fellowship.

For the most part we are focused on building large churches and we are good at it. Unfortunately, many of mega-churches (as well as a lot of mini-churches) are filled with individuals and families who are fragmented and broken. In the Acts 2:42 church, the numerical growth of the church was, again the result not the reason. The folks steadfastly pursued truth from the Word, authentic fellowship with each other, communion with Christ, and truly pious lifestyle and as a result "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." In other words, the early believers were building families, building up their neighbors, edifying one another, providing for one another, exhorting one another to holiness, buiding strong community ministry (the had favor with all the people), faithfully exercising their intimate relationship to God through corporate prayer and as a result; the church grew profoundly and powerfully.