Many things practiced in churches these days differ from that in the Early Church. We cannot go back to the time of the Book of Acts because time has moved on and the way things are done with it. Yet God is changeless and Truth is timeless. There are shortcomings, of course, in the ways we do things, but life is more complex in the 21st century than it was in the 1st century, and the person you think you know is just the persona.
Paul the apostle wrote: “Not all that are called Israel are of Israel.” We should not mistake the husk for the kernel. Not all of Jacob/Israel’s descendants are his true offspring. If they were, they would exhibit that great man’s faith. I prefer to reach out to those who know that things are not what they could be. Whether they are ready to count the cost and pay the price that change requires is another matter.
Our society has been infiltrated and our once Bible-based culture is permeated with lies. I dream of the Church restored to what it was in the beginning, but don’t live in a dreamworld. Only an awakening of the kind that took place in Wales and in Azuza Street at the beginning of the 20th century can restore the Church to what it was in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. The Early Church had its problems but it faced them, dealt with them, and moved on.
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5 to 7 inclusive) is the quintessence — the very essence of the essence of the Christian message. Christianity later organized, and in the process became less organic and more organizational.
The Apostle Paul’s most-often used figurative term for the Church is that of a body. He wrote of it not as an anatomical specimen but as a physiological body, not as a dead body but as a living one that needs every part to function interactively and cooperatively, in the way that God designed and intended. Not as a corporate body organized by CEO types with productivity, attendance and profit first and foremost.
The day of Christians as audiences and evangelists as performers is over! We are human and so we make mistakes; however, we should not overlook them or excuse them. The first thing we need to address, after deep, heartfelt repentance, is stage performance rather than real praise and worship.
Christian worship is enhanced by anointed praise and worship leaders, but their role is to merge with everyone else and let the Spirit of God take over. Idealistic? Yes. But as many Australians would say: “You’ll never know till you give it a go!”
The organic body that is the Church will work well naturally — “decently and in order” — if we stop trying to organise its activities and allow the Spirit of God to move in and through its members as He wills.