I was reading Acts 2:40-47 the other day. Allow me a quick sketch the ten point skeleton of it:

I don't know what your history has told you. Maybe you are all for mega church, or building oriented church services feel toxic to you. Maybe you love house church, simple church or you've left all together - just out there on your own. But as I read Acts 2, I am challenged. To whatever extent this represents a valid picture of "church" it represents a great template to compare ourselves against. So how are we doing?

At Storm Harvest we meet every fortnight from house to house. The other weekend is supposed to be family based worship/prayer/bible study. We've got a Monday night Bible study and a Thursday for the kids at high school. Prayer meeting Wednesdays. So what's missing? I reckon we lack communion (though recently God commented that we do "the eating and fellowship" pretty well!) Got that covered. The congregations in my town suck at doing stuff together (but are super good at synagogue style service). So far we've experimented pretty heavily in community and living together - having all things in common etc. We're also pretty short on favour with "those outside" and seeing baptisms (only had one last year). There's work to be done for sure. How about you?

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Joanna Wakefield said:

wondering how we are doing..... i think that i'm/we are pretty blessed. i love my church, by which i mean the people who make up our church. we are in the numbers game, really microscopic, but i dont mind that at all. we have been told we suffer from fishbowl syndrome, eg: one fish in another fish out. i just dont see that continually increasing numbers is automatically a realistic sign of health. in giving we have been told we outgive a church in our region, that is almost 10 times our size. we have regular community events, that the locals look forward to, a huge and growing foreign mission that has exploded almost out of nowhere a few years back- that is primarily indigenous. and we are despite much effort, thought very little of by the local church community. in general that is. i think that maybe we are still holding out somewhat - im sure i have been anyway... its somewhat the flavour of where we live, to be more than a little individualistic, and independant. i think we are generous and share our gifts our money and our time but still like to go home and shut the rest of the world out. or is that just me...?

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27 February, 2012
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