What do we want in a church? Largely, it depends on whom you ask. For as long as I’ve been serving churches (24 years now), Christian analysts have worked feverishly to predict the coming trends and desires in our culture, so churches could remain relevant and engaged with ever-changing populations. There certainly is a need to keep a eye on current trends and developments, and churches and other organizations that pay attention to cultural shifts may do a better job of connecting with the population.
However, churches’ attempts to keep up with the speed of society can tempt them away from what matters most. Plowing through books, newspapers, websites, demographic and opinion surveys, trying to stay on the cutting edge of change, we, in churches, often overlook a blessed reality: We actually have the basics we need.
I cannot count the times I’ve mistakenly said to myself, “Our church could really take off if we only had ‘this or that’ in place.” (“This or that” could refer to anything or anyone — a bigger budget, better musicians, a church van, a better youth group, a new staff position, whatever.) That’s an understandable human reaction, if we find ourselves at a point at which we seem to struggle week in and week out. “If only” becomes the game of the day, and it wrongly misdirects us from the good news that God intends for us to enjoy. Such a mindset simply reveals just how small our view of God’s power and strength is and actually short-circuits any attempts for greater vitality. We all have dreams and visions, and we all want to set a course to reach our grand goals in Christ, but we cannot fail to remember we have what we need right now.
The second chapter of the Book of Acts in the New Testament gives us a snapshot of the Christian church in its infancy. A quick survey reveals what the first churches did:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
—Acts 2:42-47
The quality behind this list of basics is that every one of them is within reach of any congregation! It’s easy for congregations to fret over what they cannot reach or attain; the quality behind this list of basics is that they are in the grasp of every congregation. Painting an awesome image of what we could be as a church, with no bridge to get there, is just self-torture.
Not too long ago, I saw a video of contractors hoisting and installing the top spire of the tower that replaced the World Trade Center. As you may imagine, it was, understandably, “a spectacle” — a big moment our nation awaited for a long time. Not a one of us ever would expect to reach that monumental moment without all the basics that first erected the building — the work of the architects, the engineers, the metal workers, the laborers of varying disciplines, not to mention the money. A million small-yet-achievable steps had to be taken before the final spire could reach its lofty perch.
God has indeed given His church a noble call to go and make disciples of all nations, to teach everything Jesus commanded us and to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. But this grand, intimidating mission is carried out through the same basics steps of those earliest churches: study in God’s word, the genuine fellowship of believers and all the achievable steps Acts 2 describes.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with big dreams; they just have to broken down to bite-sized parts that we can accomplish. In Jesus, we have all we need to be His people and His church — by the Grace of God!
Dr. David Delph is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Plant City. For more, email him at fpcpcpastor@verizon.net.