Using the witness of Scripture to reflect on congregation practice matters! Recently, when asked about a way to review “how our church is doing,” I found myself talking about using the book of Acts. So, in preparing for a presentation at an academic conference later this month on leadership considering God’s action in the world, I revisited a small but extremely useful book titled Thriving Communities: The Pattern of Church Life Then and Now. The authors, noted Duke New Testament scholar Kavin Rowe and current Belmont University president Gregory Jones, offer a succinct guide that reflects on six significant factors that shape the vitality and life of the earliest communities of faith as presented in Acts. For the academic presentation, these six factors set the stage for conversations about leadership. However, for you, I offer an adapted summary of those six factors to reflect on about your congregations and the ways in which you may engage in leadership.

The first factor is the incredible degree to which early communities of faith were networked with each other. Strategically situated in major urban centers with ample resources, these communities fostered communication and interconnectedness. Early communities were aware of each other and partnered with each other. Those relationships mattered during times of upheaval and crisis. Is your congregation isolated or networked? Are you building and sustaining partnerships with other congregations, non-profits, and other communities within your city or town for the sake of the gospel?

 The second factor distinguishes itself from the common contemporary sense that religion is private and has no place in public life. Rather, for these early communities, the Christian faith was open and visible for others to see and witness. Indeed, the term “witness” (used three dozen times) frequently is Luke’s language for church’s work. The purpose of the church is to bear witness to God’s way in the world. Does your congregation engage in worship, practice, and ministry in public spaces?

The third factor is found in the early church’s commitment to persons on the margins. All persons were welcome into the community’s life, and the church did not neglect those in need. Whether it is the minority widows in Acts 6 or the quiet story of Tabitha’s ministry in Acts 9, the early church valued care for others. In what ways does your church intentionally practice care for others—inside the congregation and outside the congregation?

The fourth factor centers around the presence and work of God. The early church was led by the Holy Spirit. The primitive church was future oriented and recognized that God was actively doing new things—even and especially in places of conflict. Likewise, the Holy Spirit prompts renewal—drawing out ways of what Rowe and Jones describe as “traditioned innovation.” By this term they are suggesting the people of God are constantly being invited by God to review their practices and rituals by taking the best of the past and adapting those practices and rituals for the sake of God’s preferred future. Who really leads your congregation? Is it a group of elders or your minister? Or can the identified leaders of your congregation openly declare that God is the one who leads us?

Fifth, the church was characterized as a community bound up by an informed confession of the faith and by embodying the faith. The content of the faith and the living of the faith are deep and intertwined. I addressed this theme last month. Yet, a look at Acts calls it to mind anew. The early church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching. The early church did not have a Bible like you and I have today. However, they were deeply formed through teaching and instruction about the content of the Christian faith. Does your congregation have a cogent plan for forming disciples (having a Sunday school program for 40% of your adults does not count!)? Are people coming to faith and being discipled as a result of your congregation’s life and witness? Are children and youth being formed with the content and the practice of the Christian faith? Do young adults remain faithful disciples after they leave your youth group?

The sixth factor seems particularly challenging to contemporary ears. Yet Rowe and Jones assert that that the earliest church suffered and that this suffering gave rise to the church’s vibrant life. God’s mission is an invitation to a different vision of thriving and flourishing. The mission of the church is a path that will mean risk, loss, and suffering. Such a posture is at direct odds with our instinctual commitment to “not rock the boat.” Yet faithful, vibrant churches are communities that follow God’s prompting and leading (see factor #4!). Are the losses in your congregation occurring because of risk-taking for God, or are the losses you are experiencing due to attrition? When you have experienced difficulty and hard times, is it because you are giving witness to God’s action in the world or because you are trying to conserve whatever persons or resources you currently have?

The witness of Scripture does matter. And what I am proposing here is a way of using the narratives and sermons of Acts as a way of reflecting on your own congregation’s vitality and life. Some persons might say that Acts is ancient history about the early church. They might also add that the world was different then or that we live in a different cultural context. Such assertions are true. Yet they neglect one central reality about the nature of Scripture. Scripture’s purpose was not to give us history and merely tell us about what God has done; rather, Scripture’s purpose is to set the action of God in the present tense. The reason to know about God in the past is so that we can recognize the action of God today.

Hence this little exercise. May God bless you as you reflect about the ways in which God longs to renew the life of your congregation!

 Carson