If the first church had a website, the tagline “Together” would have been on brand. The community of faith in its earliest days serves as the standard for every local church going forward. However, pastors today are seeing a deepening apathy toward the value and vitality of biblical community. According to the Greatest Needs of Pastors research, 75% of pastors say people’s apathy or lack of commitment is the most challenging people dynamic they deal with in ministry.
For pastors to guide their members toward seeing the compelling vision and value of community, Scripture is the best place to start. For that, we turn to the early church in Acts. Community is a defining marker of New Testament Christianity. God’s vision for every church involves commitment from its members to engage together in gospel teaching, fellowship, forgiveness, and prayer. These four components for church health should be seen in each congregation scattered across the globe. As pastors and church leaders, we have the responsibility to bring a compelling vision for biblical community to our congregations by emphasizing these four marks of the early church.
God’s vision for every church involves commitment from its members to engage together in gospel teaching, fellowship, forgiveness, and prayer. These four components for church health should be seen in each congregation scattered across the globe. As pastors and church leaders, we have the responsibility to bring a compelling vision for biblical community to our congregations by emphasizing these four marks of the early church.
1. Marked by gospel teaching
The day Jesus announced Himself as the Messiah, He went to the synagogue and unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and read aloud the ancient words of God (Luke 4:16-19). Jesus never stopped giving learning opportunities to anyone within earshot.
From sermons and stories for large crowds to private tutorials for a select few, Jesus was devoted to teaching. And the church continued to follow His example as they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42, CSB). Time and again, we’re encouraged to prioritize the Word in our lives and to use Scripture to both encourage and rebuke one another in love.
2 Timothy 4:2-4 expands on this point further:
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. (CSB)
Teaching and learning should always hold a prominent place in our churches. When a baby is delivered into the world, the first thing he or she needs is nourishment. When a brand-new Christian is born, the first thing he or she needs is teaching. And like the infant’s relationship with milk and nourishment, that need will never end. Even the most mature saints among us devote themselves to continual learning.
The early church was a thoughtful community, and that’s God’s design for every local church. As we learn from God’s Word, we grow spiritually as individuals and we grow together, unifying the church around His truth and through His love.
2. Marked by fellowship
The commitment the first Christians had to each other is striking. The direct application of Acts 2:44-45 in church life today feels so mind-boggling that many prefer to dismiss it rather than emulate it. In the original language of the New Testament, the word for fellowship in verse 42 means “close association involving mutual interests and sharing.” In other words, “fellowship” means more than “they liked to hang out” or “they enjoyed grabbing coffee.” The relationships in this community involved willing, voluntary sacrifice.
By default, people tend to choose shallow relationships over deep ones, but Christ calls us to so much more. It can feel intimidating to admit our weakness or the ways we need others to come alongside us in our burdens and struggles. But when we allow people in, we open up opportunities to not only experience the love of Christ through His church but also to display the sacrificial love of the gospel as we lay down our lives for others.
3. Marked by forgiveness
Just as the early church’s devotion to fellowship was about far more than hanging out at a local taco stand so was their devotion to the “breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42, CSB). They gathered in each other’s houses regularly, even daily, to eat “with joyful and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46). These meals would often end in remembering Jesus’s death and resurrection as they took the Lord’s Supper together. The broken bread and the sip of wine were symbolic of Jesus’s shattered body and spilled blood, poured out for our sins.
Breaking bread “from house to house” (Acts 2:46) gives the sense of an intimate, informal practice of recentering life on the gospel through our shared relationship with Jesus and our communal relationships with each other. The conscious act of confessing sin acknowledges the need for sustaining grace. The early Christians took the Lord’s Supper together—not out of need for ritual but out of a desperate desire for felt forgiveness.
James 5:16 tells us how God works through the act of confessing sin: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect” (CSB).
Confession of sin is powerful and produces healing, both in us and in our relationships with those around us. Sometimes we fear it’s far too risky as church leaders to be vulnerable with our struggles and sins. We risk getting hurt when we open up to others, but the risk is far greater on the other side. When we choose to put a proverbial wall around our hearts, we fail to open ourselves up to the kind of Christ-centered, gospel-saturated love we were meant to experience through His body.
4. Marked by prayer
As important as friendships were, the early believers understood the health of their faith community would be determined by the strength of their connection to God, so they devoted themselves to prayer (Acts 2:42). It’s important for us to see that the stronger your fellowship with God is the stronger your church fellowship will be.
Our prayer and communion with the Father should undergird all of our relationships within our church community. In Philippians 1:9-11, we see Paul’s prayers for the Church at Phillippi are rooted in a desire for them to know Christ more deeply, which would lead to love and good works toward others.
And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. (CSB)
Being the church today
Why were the members of the first church devoted in these four ways? They were obedient to the call to be the church. Their devotion to God and each other was so compelling that others came to faith and joined their group every day. What about you?
Will you be devoted to learning, sharing and caring, forgiving, and praying in the context of a local body of believers? Living within God’s design isn’t casual; it’s living in the way of Jesus. His vision is that our unity would be palpable in every generation and culture.
This article first appeared at Lifeway Research.
