Insights on the Journey

The free Tuesday’s Tip emails come from a variety of sources, but I just wrote the one for next week and I thought I would share it with my followers here:

We just concluded a fascinating three-part interview with Tony & Felicity Dale (co-authors of The Rabbit & the Elephant) in the free Smart Ministry newsletter. Even if you aren’t a proponent of the house church movement, some of their comments should make us all step back and think:

We asked our church-leader friends what they might do differently if they could do it all over again. One of them answered with disarming honesty, “I would just get together with a few friends over a drink at the pub to talk about Jesus and what he is doing.” Then he added wistfully, “But I can’t do that; I have too many church responsibilities.”

Rather than someplace to go on Sunday mornings, church in the New Testament was a vibrant community of Jesus followers, a 24-7 Kingdom lifestyle. Church was simple, taking place over meals and based on relationships.

The Dale’s quote Matthew 18:20 “For where two of three gather together as my followers, I am there among them,” and ask, “Could this be the simplest definition of church?

Are so busy doing church that we’ve forgotten to be the church? As we approach Thanksgiving, it’s appropriate to try to spend time putting aside our gratitude for what our volunteers have done and reflect on our appreciation of who they are. Yes, they’ve helped us accomplish ministry goals, but have we:

• Borne their burdens? (Galatians 6:2)
• Taught them? (Colossians 3:16)
• Preferred them in love? (Romans 12:10)
• Shared what we have with them, including meals and our hospitality? (Acts 2)

If we have too many church responsibilities to have time to build relationships, then I suggest we all reconsider our priorities. It’s interesting to me that the Christians in Acts 2 “had favor with all the people.” That’s certainly not true today, is it.

Could it be because we’re not acting like the Acts 2 Christians acted?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.