#13. The church in Acts is a hard church to try to mimic
The are just so different. Society is different, the culture is different BUT what they were doing was different as well... that is one of the reasons people were interested. There weren't too many people at the time selling all of there "stuff" (land, cattle, businesses) in order to put it into a pot for a whole community to live off of. Very socialist.... and of course if you are many Americans (many Christians) the word socialism is a very naughty word.
Now I understand that we live in a "very different society/culture" and that most of those concepts just wouldn't work today BUT what if they would? What if we could and should live more "socialistic"? It certainly in many cases would be more biblical than most of our Western lives. It would involve self sacrifice, unlimited giving, openness, patience and blind faith (in God and the people around us). Now all that being said most Christians (and people in general) have a hard time with self sacrifice, giving unlimited amounts (heck, people don't like to give away limited amounts... its all about savings for yourself later, baby!), true openness, patience with everyone and a blind faith in anything. Yet, over and over again we see Jesus talk about this and live this life style out as an example. Obviously, Jesus was constantly self sacrificial, always giving of himself, taught that people should want to give more, and he was always compassionately open, honest and patient (except with religious "folks") about who he was/is.
I just sometimes wonder if we as the church shouldn't look a little bit more radical. Radically different. I know we push community in church but I am talking about a true community... real togetherness.... more of a everyone knows everyone place. Now admittedly there is a side of me that thinks this whole idea is crazy and impractical. But still it is hard for me to read the Bible see the Acts church, see Jesus' ministry and still think what we do as a church currently is really the way church is supposed to be done.
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3 comments:
What would you like to see changed? How specifically can we become more like the church in Acts 2? I would love to hear if you have any ideas on how to bring change into the church.
Your thoughts here could be the beginning of a good conversation.
Lol, I was wondering if I would stir up a few comments with this blog... one (I got an email too but it was a nice one from a friend).
I just want us to be closer as a community as a whole. I love kinships.. I need to be in a kinship (and that would help). But, do you remember when we had everyone sit in circles? We were trying to start to do things differently than a normal Western church service.... everyone prayed with each other in the circle... kind of a "forced" community to get everyone going... like when you make the youth group kids meet someone new every week... that is just one example. Obviously, I have more ideas... when don't I :) But we should and that would make it easier
also this wasn't anything specific to LVC... actually I was thinking Church with a Capital C almost the whole time I was writing.
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