on the walk

This isn’t an event per se and so it breaks the rule for this series, but before I comment on the next events, we have to notice a bit about the kind of life that pervades the early church.  (I will talk about the two events that are mentioned in the next post.)

 You can check the story out here: Acts 2:42-47.

The first truth with which we must contend is a truth about content.  This text lists four devotions: apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers.  Do these represent four event types or four things that happened at every event or neither of those options?  I grew up in a church culture that looked to these four things as the defining markers not only of a church but more particularly of a church event.  If nothing else happened on Sunday morning, it was expected that these four things did happen.  Other things like singing and announcements may happen, but it was these four elements that were required and if they happened, then it was by definition a church service regardless of anything else that may or may not have happened.  I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and if nothing else it creates a balance on Sunday mornings between four vital practices.

While that view has served a lot of churches very well, I am no longer sure that this interpretation is required of the text.  Perhaps these four realities are essential not for each event but for the rhythm of the life of the church overall.  If the other reading insists that all these practices be mixed together like a casserole, the alternative view would suggest that a four course meal was equally healthy.  In this model we might have some events that are focused on teaching and others on prayer and fellowship.  Some might focus on the community meal with little teaching and a lot of prayer.  Other community meals might bubble over in fellowship with only a bit of prayer.

This difference matters for at least two reasons.  The first is that we want to honestly respond to the meaning of the text.  If this text (as I now read it) is giving us examples of the kind of life led by these early Christians rather than giving us a list of the four things every church event must have, then we should admit that so that we are able to read the text honestly for what it says rather than assume a patternism that isn’t there.

The second is that at some point we must begin to actually plan an event.  When we do so, there are fundamental decisions to be made.  Can we plan an event focused just on fellowship?  Can we call an event a Christian event that is not centered on the meal?  If these elements are examples and not blueprints, then we are freed to plan a comprehensive and complementary collection of events that in different ways address these values.

I am convinced that these devotions are exemplary of a wide variety of events and should not be interpreted as essential to all events.  The key reason for this conviction is the examples that are given.  There is no indication of a single central event that attempted to cover all of these bases.  On the contrary, the implication is that in a multitude of overlapping ways, these four values are expressed.

Fellowship is expressed in the sharing of possessions and mutual support.  Surely some of that happened at organized events.  Maybe even a first century potluck supper. (Paul has to deal with some problem potlucks in his letters to the Corinthian churches.)  But clearly what is most directly described here is not a program or an event but a lifestyle embodied by a community so intimately connected that needs could be known and shared.

These four are the marks of the church not because they can be checked off a programming list, but because they are the natural life expression of the church.

BUT..

It does seem that these core values did find expression in at least two regular events, and having indulged in this excursus I will turn to those two events in the next post.

on the walk

-Ethan

The very first church event is a prayer meeting.  As Jesus leaves he instructs the eleven and all the believers to wait in Jerusalem.  In Acts 1:12-14 we find that they obey him and the eleven return to Jerusalem, gather together all the believers and they are constantly in prayer.  This behavior is so very interesting to me.  What inspires these prayers?

Is prayer the Christian way to wait?

We will see as we continue in Acts that prayer meeting were pretty common.  As in this case, it seems to be the thing the church did as a spontaneous response to all sorts of situations.   They may have had scheduled 2nd Tuesday of the Month sort of prayer meetings too.  But what we hear about all the time is drop-to-our-knees-we-need-to-talk-to-God prayer meetings.

I’ll try to resist applying what we find in scripture too quickly to today but here are a few observations.

1. For them, waiting becomes prayer.

2. Everyone was included.

3. Prayer meetings are low-profile events in contemporary church culture.

As we return to make some constructive observations about today’s practice,  we will wrestle with prayer meetings.  I am surprised even as I write this post at the contrast between the importance of prayer meetings in Acts and their importance in the life of the church today.  We know more about the prayer meetings of Acts then we do about their weekly worship services.  I am already learning from this study.

(In the next post we will read about the first all church business meeting.)
on the walk
-Ethan

We cannot underestimate the central authority of the Bible.

I often find myself out of step in many conversations about difficult decisions.   Other people seem much more impressed with the wisdom that can be found in experience or in experts.  Or they are very confident in the wisdom they will gain from the subjective experience they will have as a result of prayer. I am not.  They may be right and I may be wrong, but for me the only authority that carries much weight is the Bible.

This is why I devote so much of my energy to learning how to wisely and faithfully interpret the Bible and apply it to our lives.  As the old line goes, it is our only rule for faith and practice.  That doesn’t merely mean that it is the best one, it means what it says, it is the only one.

Consequently although I am not a biblicist, the Bible is where I will start for any major investigation of what the church is called to believe and how the church is called to live.  So long before I consider what we can know about God through the post-biblical language of the trinity, I am going to consider what we can learn about God from scripture. And long before I consider what I can learn from the traditions of church worship and programming that I have inherited in my life of faith, I want to return to scripture, to ask, “What is the church doing?”

So I am not a biblicist.  I know that God has continued to guide the church and we must learn from the wisdom of all of church history.

But as my rule for faith and practice there is one source.  The Bible.

So that is where we will turn for our foundation of the core events of the church.

on the walk

-Ethan

Consequently I believe that while the Bible is the sufficient rule for faith and practice it is not exhaustive.  The Spirit still speaks.  Christians have had lots of good ideas since the Bible was written and I am please to benefit from those ideas.

There are some Christian circles in which this is not a radical suggestion, but I grew up in a tradition and I minister in a tradition in which biblicism is easy to find.  In fact a major family of this movement of churches goes by the name acapella Churches of Christ.  They will not use instruments in worship.  This is because in the new Testament there is no record of instruments being used in a worship service.  Some other Christians insist that women where head coverings. This is biblicism.  This view holds that every post-biblical innovation is an innapropriate Christian practice.

If this view had a motto it would be “If it is not in the Bible, I won’t do it.”

You may be thinking to yourself, “that sounds like a great motto.”  I agree.  It does sound like a great motto, but believe me, it isn’t.   It turns out that Christians have thought of lots of good things that aren’t in the Bible.  Now of course because they are not in the Bible that means that we can’t pretend they are essential, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good things.

Here are a few things that are not in the bible,(or at least not in the same way we have them today.)

• Church Buildings
• Offering Trays
• Projectors
• Christmas
• Easter
• Sunday School
• Seminaries
• Heated Baptisteries
• “Quiet Time”
• Church Calendar
• Daily Office
• The Trinity
• Alter calls
• and lots of other stuff why don’t you help me add to my list.

See that is all good stuff.  I wish that it was as easy as being a biblicist.  INstead we have to ask the much more difficult question.  Is this practice or teaching that is not in scripture still faithful to scripture.  Does it exprtess what scripture teaches without going further than scritpure does?

That takes discernment and the wisdom of the whole church guided by the Spirit and that is why I am not a biblicist.

(tune in to my next post for the big BUT…)

And this matters for our conversation about church events.  It won’t be as simple as asking what are the 3 or ten or fifty types of events that the church in Acts had.  Just because they had an event doesn’t mean that we must and just because they didn’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.  As we ponder the core evens of the church we will need submit fully to the authority of scripture but to do that we must do more than just copy the church in Jerusalem or Phillipi or Corinth (please don’t copy the church in Corinth).
on the walk

-Ethan

I have been wondering lately what are the core events of the life of the church.  What kinds of events ought we expect from every church in all times and what kinds of events are more tied to the form of the church or the culture it inhabits.

Is a weekly “worship service” necessary?  What should Christian worship look like anyway?

Are outreach events considered core events?  (Certainly outreach is, but what about big events designed for outreach?)

Are teaching events something that every church should have? (Again, I am not asking if teaching should happen, I am asking if its should happen in events.)

Of course churches will have lots of good programming that is beyond core programming but since programming decisions always involve hard choices with limited resources of time and money, it is worth asking what kinds of events lie at the core of the church and what are occasional (even if important) expressions of its mission at a particular cultural moment.
I am choosing the word “core” carefully.  I am not trying to come with a list of essentials.  I don’t want to say that every church will have these events and if a given church licks these events they are less than ideal.  On the other hand it would not surprise me if we could discern a rough handful of events that are so deeply tied to the mission and purpose of God church that they are core events.

I am also choosing the word events with some care.  I don’t mean to pretend that the forms of these events will be static.  On the contrary, I would specifically expect that they forms of these events would need to be redeveloped at least every other generation if not more frequently.

To get started, I will turn to the New Testament.  Let’s wander through it together and see what kinds of events are described on its pages.  That list may not be the whole answer (as I will soon discuss) but it certainly is an important part of the answer.

I hope that many who care about the church and the programming of the church might join me in this conversation. I’ll start with a comment about the dangers of biblicism and then we will get rolling with the first few chapters of Acts.

on the walk

-Ethan