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Jerusalem Church

Jerusalem Church (Part 10): The Vision–Problem Solving Not Problem Free

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the tenth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Problem Solving Not Problem Free

As we continue to look at the Jerusalem church as a model for all congregations, we will notice victory after victory. We will see positive example after positive example. We may begin to wish we could be more like the Jerusalem church. If we were, then we wouldn’t have all the problems we have now.

That, however, is not true. The Jerusalem church had people in it just like we do. Those people were imperfect sinners just like we are. Do you understand what that means for that congregation? It means they had problems.

In Acts 3, there was the persecution problem. In Acts 5, there was the hypocritical members problem. In Acts 6, there was the partiality problem. In Acts 15, there was the circumcision problem. These are just the problems that we see recorded. No doubt in the Jerusalem congregation people got their feelings hurt. No doubt tensions flared. People struggled with sin. People argued with each other. Someone was slighted. Someone didn’t get invited to a party. Someone taught something that was incorrect. Some people lost their jobs. Some people had marriage struggles and parenting struggles. Their leaders made mistakes. On and on the list would go.

We don’t see problem-free in Jerusalem. Rather, we see a group of people committed to solving and overcoming the problems as quickly as possible. Because they admitted their problems, faced their problems, and worked on their problems, they had a surprising amount of unity.

What other choice did they have? There were no other churches to run to. If they were going to stay with Christ and His church, they were going to stay in that congregation. It didn’t occur to them to solve the problem by starting the East or Westside congregation.

No doubt the numerous congregations in many places is a blessing in some ways. However, it can also be a curse as people who want problem-free hop from church to church instead of facing the problems. Sadly, all too often, the reason we never face the problems is because we fear we might find out that we are the problem. It is easier to run away than recognize that dealing with the problem may mean we have to deal first with ourselves.

Don’t try to develop a church that is free of problems. That will never happen. Rather, develop a congregation that deals with the problems at hand. That is the Jerusalem vision.

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(Keep coming back. This post wraps up our look at the Jerusalem Vision. As we continue looking at the Jerusalem church we are going to see seven principles that caused them to set the world ablaze.)

The Jerusalem Church (Part 9): The Vision–Personal Sacrifice not Communism

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the eighth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Personal Sacrifice not Communism

For some strange reason, people keep trying to read modern politics into the Bible or find defense for modern political idealogies in the Bible. The fact is the Bible is not a political book. Jesus wasn’t trying to impact governments. He was trying to impact individuals. We seem to forget that Christianity was birthed under imperialism and not once did Jesus, Peter, or Paul tell Christians to do a single thing about that except pray for the governing officials (I Timothy 2:1-2).

But, because so many want to find politics in the Bible, they cherry pick passages without considering them in their real context. For instance, supporters of Communism love to bring up Acts 2:44-45.

“And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were sellign their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

“There it is,” we are told, “the first Christians were Communists.” That couldn’t be farther from the truth. According to Isms: A Compendium of Concepts, Doctrines, Traits and Beliefs from Ableism to Zygodactylism*communism is “a social system characterized by government ownership of the means of production and organization of labor by a coercive bureaucracy.” Thus, if the early church was communistic, the church would own the communal property. But that is not at all what happened.

Sadly, we learn the truth of this matter from a dreadful sin committed by Ananias and Sapphira. These two conspired together to trick the congregation. They sold some land for one price, but told the congregation they had sold it for a lower price. Then they kept the difference for themselves. They were judged harshly by God for their deception.

However, notice what Peter said to them in Acts 5:3-4.

“But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?”

When people became Christians, ownership of their property did not transfer to the church. The group did not own the individuals property or take control of it. The group did not get to decide what to do with it. Had Ananias wanted to, he could have kept his land. After he sold it, he could have kept some of the profits and given only what he wanted. It was all completely under his control.

If this wasn’t Communism, what was it? It was individuals sacrificing for each other because they were part of a new group. Christians were caring for each other not because some commune became owners of their property and decided to care for its members. Christians as individuals were deciding to make personal sacrifice to give to the church that it might care for those of its number that were in need.

If we are going to have the Jerusalem vision, we are not going to envision a commune. We are not going to envision church control of our property or communal gathering of our goods. But we will envision members caring so much for each other that they sacrifice personally to care for each other. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a group that cared for each other like that?

(Make sure you come back next week as we wrap up this look at the Jerusalem Vision noticing that they were not problem free but committed to overcoming problems.)

*Yes, that is an associate link. I thought you might be interested in doing your own research on Isms sometime. Enjoy.

The Jerusalem Church (Part 8): The Vision–A Family, Not Corporation

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the eighth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Close-knit Family, not a Corporation

As we learn about the Jerusalem church, we will discover that they understood the principles of delegation and division of labor. As we start talking about that, many people will miss the point. We may use catch phrases that are common in the business world because there are many parallels. We may talk about mission statements, goals, plans, budgets. Even this series is talking about having a vision for the congregation. But Jesus didn’t die to establish a corporation. Jesus died to establish a community. He died to establish a close-knit family.

Consider Acts 2:42-47. Here were people that had all things in commong. They were selling their possessions and giving to each other. They were assembling in the temple every day and they were meeting in smaller groups from house to house every day. They praised God together. They ate together. They cared for each other.

Consider Acts 4:32-37. The brethren were of one heart and one soul. They were united in their care and concern for each other. They did not have a needy person among them because they took care of each other. Some even went to the extreme of selling land and houses and giving the proceeds to the needy among them.

Does this sound like a cold corporation? No. This wasn’t about ledger sheets, budgets, programs, plans, and bottom lines. This was about community and family. The Christians were finding a family as they met from house to house with each other. They were finding a family as they assembled with the entire congregation. They were finding the kind of support we ought to have in our families. But they were finding it sometimes from strangers who only knew that they were family in Christ.

It is amazing that this can be said of 3000 people who quickly became 5000 and potentially 10,000.

If we want to be what the Jerusalem church was, we will remove any visions of corporation and replace them with a vision of community and close-knit family. That is the great blessing God would have for us in His church.

(Make sure you come back next week as we learn that the Jerusalem vision is not Communism but sacrificing for the good of the congregation.)

The Jerusalem Church (Part 7): The Vision–Getting the Workers Needed

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the seventh post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Getting the Workers Needed

Once again it is too easy to get trapped in numbers. As we learn more and more about the Jerusalem church, I’m going to repeatedly come back to the fact that the Jerusalem church had 12 full-time workers, 12 evangelists if you will. Someone might mistakenly think that means to really arrive at being a congregation, the vision is to have 12 evangelists or workers. But that isn’t the point at all. The Jerusalem vision is simply to have the workers that are needed.

As we learned last week, the vision is not to have enough hired hands to do the work, but to have all hands working. And yet, while all hands are working, a congregation will still need fulltime workers, those who have completely devoted their lives to the work of the Lord within the congregation. This goes along with Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4:11-12. While every hand is to be working, God has established certain roles to equip the saints to accomplish their work. These are fulltime workers. The scripture even shows that they can be supported by the congregation to fulfill their work (I Corinthians 9:9).

Antioch had the same idea about multiple workers. According to Acts 13:1, the Antioch church had 5 fulltime teachers. But again, the issue isn’t about the exact number. This is not saying that Antioch was on its way to accomplishing the Jerusalem vision, but hadn’t quite made it yet because it didn’t have as many workers. They were accomplishing the vision because they had the workers needed.

This vision was exemplified by Barnabas in Acts 11:25. Barnabas saw the need for another worker. He went and got him and brought him back to Antioch. To fulfill the Jerusalem vision, each congregation needs to work on having the workers needed.

Let’s face it. Our society has changed over the past fifty years. The work that can be accomplished by an evangelist, a handful of elders and few volunteers has diminished. More women are working. Men are working more hours. Families are involved in more extra-curriculars. There is simply less volunteer time. Yes, everyone of us must work in the church. But, as the pace of our society has increased, so has our need for fulltime workers to train and equip workers and organize and implement the work.

Of course, few of us really have a problem with trying to claim we ought to have 12 full-time workers. Most of us simply can’t imagine having more than one, at most two. The thing we need to see here is that the work for these men is more than preaching a sermon on Sunday. Paul taught from house to house according to Acts 20:20. Can you imagine if more Christians recognized they needed more teaching time than a few congregational assemblies a week and opened their homes for teaching, inviting others in from the congregation and the community, how much work would there be?

What work is really needed? How many workers will that take? To be like Jerusalem, a congregation better get the workers otherwise it will limit its ability to grow.

(Come back next Thursday to learn about the Jerusalem vision of being a closer knit family.)

The Jerusalem Church (Part 6): The Vision–Every Hand Working

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the sixth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Not More Hired Hands to Work, But Every Hand Working

As we talk about what worked at the Jerusalem church and other churches in the New Testament, I can’t help but notice that they all had multiple full-time workers. Jerusalem had 12 apostles acting as evangelists. Antioch had 5 (Acts 13:1). Paul always had multiple workers with him on his journeys. Many folks today start thinking a church is going liberal if they have more than one full-time preacher working with the church. Some are getting used to two workers. After all, most congregations have two sermon times each Sunday, but 5 or 12? Please, there must be something wrong with that. Except that is exactly what we see in the Bible.

Having noticed that, we may begin to think the Jerusalem vision is about having multiple full-time workers. We may mistakenly think that the vision is to hire workers and let everyone else simply contribute money to support the workers. That is not the Jerusalem vision. The Jerusalem vision is not getting enough hired hands to do the work, but to get every hand working.

In Acts 2:44-47, it wasn’t the 12 full-time workers who were doing all the ministering. It was everyone who had ability. In Acts 6, it wasn’t the 12 full-time workers who did everything. They searched through the congregation to find folks to fill other roles. In Acts 8:4, it wasn’t the full-time workers who did the teaching, everyone went out teaching as they were scattered.

No doubt, full-time workers have their place. But their place is not to do all the work. We all have work to do. In fact, Ephesians 4:11-12 explains the place of full-time workers. Their job is not to do all the work. Their job is to equip everyone else to do the work of ministry.

As we learn about workers in Jerusalem, don’t lose sight of this overarching principle. The Jerusalem vision is not about hiring enough hands to do the work, but about getting every hand working.

Come back next Thursday, when we’ll examine this a little more and see the Jerusalem vision is not about 12 evangelists but about getting the workers that are needed.

The Jerusalem Church (Part 5): The Vision–Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

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(If you landed on this post without seeing the others in this series, let me explain what is going on here. Thursdays is my day to talk about God’s way for our congregations. Right now I’m in the middle of a series on the Jerusalem church and it’s success. This is the fifth post in the series. I encourage you to check out the introduction to this series to know more about what is going on and to find an index of the posts in this series as they are put up. Enjoy.)

Continual Growth not 10,000 Members

Jerusalem by mharrschI like to talk about the Jerusalem church a lot. I see it as an exemplary church of growth and work. I know we claim to want to be what they were and do what they did, but how many congregations achieve what they achieved?

As I talk about this example, I’ll mention that according to Acts 2:41 they started with about 3000 members. By Acts 4:4, the number of men came to be about 5000. When you add in wives, widows, and children, this means the congregation could have been between 10,000 and 15,000. Yet, somehow many brethren tend to believe if a congregation gets over 150 they must be doing something wrong. Either they are doing something wrong to attract that many members or simply having that many members is wrong all by itself (after all, how can the elders know everyone in a 10,000 member congregation?). Yet, Jerusalem did it.

A sad byproduct of talking about this aspect of the Jerusalem church is missing the actual vision. Some people have a vision of getting a church to be so large. Maybe their vision is to get to 100. Maybe 500. Maybe 1000. Maybe 10,000. The problem is what happens when you accomplish that number? Will the church continue to reach out and save the lost? Usually not. We have a tendency to reach our goals and then take breaks.

When we look at Jerusalem, however, we don’t see a church with a goal of 10,000 members. We see a church with a goal of saving one more person. More than giving the life-changing gospel to one more person, they made sure they could handle adding one more person as part of the congregation. This is the real issue for us today. Most churches know well enough to claim they want one more convert. What we often miss is that how we run the congregation on a practical level, the kind of facilities we have, the kind of leadership we employ, the kind of relationships we develop all limit our ability to grow.

The Jerusalem church was not simply about baptizing one more person. They were about conducting their work, even changing their work, in such a way as to handle having that one more person be a viable part of the congregation.

If we are going to really grow congregations today, we must do more than simply work on baptizing people. There are many churches that baptize people ever year, but they never grow. We need to be like Jerusalem, expanding and adapting our leadership and work to allow for the growth many of us claim to want.

Keep coming back and we’ll discuss the keys of the Jerusalem church’s success in this growth and expansion.

I hope you are enjoying and learning from this look at the Jerusalem Church. Come back next week as we learn that the Jerusalem vision is not about hiring enough workhands, but about getting all hands working.