WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE THE CHURCH?

 Acts 2:42 (NIV)

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

               I have been contemplating lately what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a part of His church. It is easy to fall into the idea that being a follower of Jesus is just about going to heaven when you die. But is that really all that it is? Isn’t there more to being a genuine Jesus follower?

               The more that I have thought about this the more I come back to what it means to really be a church. When Jesus taught, the focus of His message was on being in a right relationship with God and with one another. Being a follower of Jesus is all about relationship. It is not just about living a moral life, but living a life in communion with God and with others.

               The church has fallen on hard times. The attitude of many people is that the church is irrelevant at best and a problem at worst. It has been depicted as imposing a set of rules onto people that denies them freedom and takes away their fun. This is sad, because the church is actually the path to genuine freedom and ultimate purpose in life.

               Acts 2:42 gives us the essence of the church in a nut shell. What we see is four basic components to discovering the life Jesus promised us when He promised us the abundant life.

               The church should be a place of learning about God and about ourselves. Teaching has always been at the heart of what the church does. In fact, in the Great Commission, teaching is a prominent aspect. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV) Without sound teaching we drift from new idea to new idea without any firm foundation. The early church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching and we should as well.

               The church should be a place to really belong. The early church was devoted to the fellowship; they really loved one another. This is an aspect of the church that we have lost today. In our focus on individual needs and desires, we have forgotten that we need one another. The church was designed to demonstrate life as God designed it. It should be an open fellowship not a closed circle. It should be a place where people feel accepted and belong. But it also means that we are to hold one another accountable to living out our faith genuinely. Real community encourages and corrects, supports and challenges. The church should be a place where people can be real, warts and all.

               The church should be a place to worship and celebrate. The breaking of bread specifically refers to the Lord’s Supper; a time to remember and reflect upon what Jesus has done for us on the cross. But it can be extended to breaking bread together around the table in our homes or in the church. The setting for the Lord’s Supper was a shared meal. There is something intimate and meaningful about sharing a meal together. The church needs to be a place where we can genuinely worship together whether that be in a formal sense or an informal sense. It should be a place to celebrate all that God has done and is doing in us.

               The last aspect of the church is that it should be a place the encourages an intimate relationship with God. Prayer is more than a laundry list of things we want God to do for us. It is a two-way conversation. It is an invitation to open our hearts to God and allow Him to transform our lives. Prayer is not a formality that we need to get out of the way. It is an essential part of what it means to connect with God. Praying together binds us together as the body of Christ. It aligns our hearts and our minds with God’s heart and mind.

               We live in a world that is disparate for genuine community. Most people today are lonely. They want to be accepted and to really belong. All of the superficial ways to experience community that are offered to people today fall short and end in disappointment and discouragement.

               Jesus created the church to be a place to belong. A place to do life together. A place to grow as people, spiritually, emotionally, and socially. The church at it best is not another social club, but a genuine community that cares for its people, that binds up the wounds of the fragile, that empowers people to live up to who God created them to be. The church should be a place that brings out the best in people. Jesus created the church to bring light into a dark world, to add flavor to life, and to rescue people from the decay that dominates our world.

               No church is perfect; we all have flaws. But when a group of Jesus followers bands together to live as Jesus taught us to live, we can change our world.

Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”