The Church, God’s Own People
Part 2
They devoted themselves to Discipleship.
Acts 2:41 -47 New American Standard Bible
41 So then, those who had received his word were
baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. 42 They
were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone kept feeling a
sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the
apostles. 44 And all those who had believed were together and had all things in
common; 45 and they began selling their property and possessions and were
sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. 46 Day by day continuing with
one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were
taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47 praising
God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their
number day by day those who were being saved.
Throughout the last 2,000 years of Church History, we have had countless models, missions, strategies, programmes and systems
that are/were supposed to make us more effective and efficient in the ways we
do, be and are the Church, some of these
have been more fruitful than others, I’ve been a Christian for over 30 years
and have seen these ideas both working
and failing, we have tried so many things and if we’re honest have any of them
worked as we hoped, dreamed and expected?
For many years we have built man-made structures
and systems that are no longer relevant to us the Church, these things have
served their purpose and in many ways have outlived their purposes.
I have thought a
lot in recent days about the Mission and Vision of/for the Church is our
Mission and Vision the same as the Mission of the Church and the Vision of the
Church that Jesus and the early disciples had?
The first question we had to ask ourselves is what
our Lord Jesus’s Mission and Vision of the Church is? For that we must examine
Scripture, many have called these verses the Great Commission.
Matthew
28:18-20
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them,
saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 [a]Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to
observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you [b]always, even to the end of the
age.
Quite simply our Lord’s Mission and Vision for His
Church is found in Scripture, what the Bible teaches us about the Church should
be our first point of reference and our
last point of reference, indeed our only point of reference not the latest
podcast, prophecy, programme, project or plan nor indeed our traditions or
history, it’s time that we no longer
relied on anything that isn’t found in Scripture and see a restoration of New
Testament Christianity, not any more man
made systems and strategies, it’s time to change and now is the time to change!
I’m not saying we should ignore what Godly Men
& Women have written for and about the Church but we should only read books
etc. that have a strong and exclusive grounding
in the Bible.
We have tried many things to increase our
Churches, and see people born again, lives transformed, hope restored and
renewed, but can we say with total honesty, that what we tried hasn’t worked or
worked for a certain time and/or situation, yes we keep trying these trusted
old and not so old methods and despite our best efforts they’ve failed or
haven’t been as fruitful, the Bible speaks of old and new wineskins
Matthew
9:17
New American Standard Bible
17 Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the
wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh
wineskins, and both are preserved.”
I believe that the old wineskins
speak of our old ways of doing things, and the new wineskins speaks of the
Biblical ways of both doing and being the Church.
For many years our model of
Church has been called Attractional Church and recent years a new model has
been promoted the Incarnational church or Missional Church, I’m going to be controversial
I believe the Church needs to both Attractional and Incarnational! We need to
bring people in and send people out, I’, not going to promote or invent a new
way of us being and doing Church, I will say it’s time we return to our roots
or go back to basics, we need to a Church of Disciples, A Church were our
growth strategy is based on Discipleship, our Mission is his Great Commission
our Vision is His Vision.
In my next post, I will continue
with Discipleship and give a Biblical example of what a Church based on
Discipleship will look like?
Yours in His Grace
Blair Humphreys
Southport, Merseyside, UK
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