The Four Practices of the Church

 

Classic picture of a Southern Baptist potluck, the epitome of fellowship!

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Acts 2:42

 What does it mean to be a part of a church? Now, I’m not talking The Church, God’s global body of believers that are joined together in Him. I’m talking about a local church where you meet together regularly in person. Why did God give us this design for how we are supposed to live together and grow in Him? We already have the Holy Spirit and our call is to the lost (Matthew 28:19-20) who are typically not found in churches. So, why did God establish local churches in the New Testament?

 In a local church, we have the opportunity to receive regular teaching. I know that these days we have so very many teaching platforms available to us from books to podcasts, YouTube videos to Facebook groups. But sitting in church on a Sunday morning (or Sunday evening, or Saturday for that matter, whenever your church meets) is just different. For one thing, you don’t have any control over what is being taught. When learning at home, we have the risk of setting ourselves up in an echo chamber, or simply reinforcing the ideas we already have. At church, you hear the message God has chosen for you to hear. That can be a horse of a different color! I just wrote this week about how God spoke to my heart through the message at church over a week ago, and it wasn’t even my pastor speaking. My son was going through an especially difficult patch in life and he came to church with us one Sunday and wouldn’t you know it, we had a guest speaker who taught on Lamentations! Have you ever heard a Sunday sermon on lamenting, because I sure haven’t, but that was exactly what he needed to hear that particular Sunday morning and God knew it and brought him to just the right place at the right time. People sometimes choose their home church based in part on the teaching, and while it’s important to make sure that what is being taught from the pulpit is biblical and God honoring, we shouldn’t be seeking out entertainment.

 Their next focus was on fellowship. I’ve written about this many times because it is so important. We were made for fellowship. We were made in the image of God, who Himself defines fellowship as He lives in three parts, The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and yet is also one as those three parts are in perfect fellowship together. We were not designed to live this life alone. Instinctively we will seek out others to walk alongside, but this is not always to our benefit. The Bible has a lot to say about the people we spend our time with, but most clear is 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” When we spend time with people at or from our local church, we at least have a baseline of commonality in the worship and teaching of Jesus. That’s not to say that everyone we encounter there will be good, solid Christians, but that we have a starting place to grow from together.

 The breaking of bread in this verse refers to the celebration of communion, where we remember together Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. This call to remembrance shapes our lives, our thoughts, our choices. Regularly pausing to observe communion together keeps us centered on Jesus. I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of how my church does this. They just put tables with the elements on them up front during worship and everyone does it on their own. There’s often not even any guidance over what it’s about or admonition to check your heart before participating. My favorite observance of communion was when I was a child. We worshipped at a tiny church, less than 30 people, on a tiny Island in the Puget Sound. One of the women of the church made a loaf of homemade bread for that Sunday and each of us tore off a hunk, literally breaking bread together. While that was a wonderful time, our most memorable communion was when we ran out of grape juice and, living on a remote island, we couldn’t just run to the store for more. What did we have? A vending machine with grape soda. Yep, that works too! The whole point is remembering together Christ’s sacrifice for our sins and His perfect gift of salvation. The actual elements are less important.

 Finally, these early disciples were devoted to prayer. I pray all day, every day, but there’s something different about praying together. There’s something different about a friend saying, “Let me pray for you,” then putting their hand on my shoulder and coming before our Heavenly Father with me. Praying together is a special gift, one I very much appreciate at our small group. Once a month we meet together with other believers in a home where we fellowship, eat together, have a teaching time, and pray. We talk a little about what is going on in our lives and where we feel the need for prayer, but then as we take time to go around the room praying for each other, we pray as we feel led, often above and beyond what the person asked for specifically. We can do this because we’ve taken time to know each other, to become involved in each other’s lives. We know that while they’ve asked for prayer for their son, they really also need prayer for themselves for the situation their family is facing. I’ve also been learning the value of scripted, corporate prayer. Early in my walk with Jesus I shunned these, seeing them as rote, impersonal sayings. As I’ve matured, I’ve learned that through these corporate prayers we can learn and grow and join together. I love how Tish Harrison Warren puts it in her book, Prayer in the Night, “For most of church history, Christians understood prayer not primarily as a means of self-expression or an individual conversation with the divine, but as an inherited way of approaching God, a way to wade into the ongoing stream of the church’s communion with him.” (1) She goes on to say later, “Inherited prayers and practices of the church tether us to belief, far more securely than our own vacillating perspective or self-expression” (2). Learning about and using the prayers of the church can grow and change your perspective, and they grant you another way to join in the fellowship of prayer.

Here's the Thing: Church isn’t a building, it’s the fellowship of believers around the world and throughout time. It’s our spiritual family. Just like with our natural families we need to nurture those relationships in order to keep them healthy. And just as our natural family shapes who we are and how we approach the world, our spiritual family comes alongside us to equip us for walking with Jesus in a world that needs Him so very much.

    (1)    Warren, Tish Harrison. Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (pp. 7-8). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

    (2)    Warren, Tish Harrison. Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (p. 16). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.