If I were to imagine I was an ordinary man in the early church in Jerusalem I imagine that every morning I would wake up in my own home, say a prayer with my family over breakfast and then head off to work all day. I would work all day and then come home and get cleaned up and then go with my family to hear one of the apostles teach in the temple courts. Then at night time I would go off with my family and a group of other believers to someone's house to eat, discuss what we heard, pray together, worship together and spend time in causal brotherly fellowship together. Then my family would go home and we would sleep and then repeat this process 6 days a week with a day of Sabbath on Saturday, on which we would, instead of working all day, spend the whole day with other believers doing what we do most evenings.
In doing this I would get to know all of stories, and teachings, and commands of Jesus and learn to obey all of them with a joyful heart becoming more and more like Jesus. As I do all this, like the rest of the believers, I tell everyone I interact with about what I do in the evenings and welcome them to join us and so the church grows through my actions, both in the depth of spiritual life of the people there already and in the addition of more believers.
The people in the early church spent time together in order to become more like Jesus and as they did this night after night, year after year the people in the early church grew to become more like Jesus and more and more people put their faith in Jesus and did the same thing.
Knowing more now about how the early church lived, today I ask you three questions.
In the last 3 years or so what areas has Zion Church of Wauseon been doing this well and what areas have you seen that we have been lacking in genuine community?
What does it look like for you personally to live in genuine community?
How can we as a church live in genuine community?
Take time to answer these questions and share the questions and answers with your friends, family, and with your pastor to help us all to live in genuine community together.
God bless you and have a great week!
