Brothers and sisters,
It’s been a while since I last wrote to you but I’m happy to be back in the saddle after a busy but exciting holiday season. In this pastor’s blog, I wanted to share a little bit of my vision that I’ve given a lot of thought and prayer to over the last couple of months as we launch into 2023. While this vision is directed at Glacier Valley members and attendees, it would serve anyone in any church well. It’s not because I’m some guru in church or spiritual health but because I believe these pillars of devotion, which I’m about to speak to, are biblically based and were evident in the thriving early church. If you attended our State of the Church address this past Sunday evening, this won’t be entirely new to you but will be good for reinforcement. So, let’s dive in!
4 Pillars of Devotion
This idea of focusing solely on just a few fundamentals stemmed from a couple of places. One is the biblical source of Acts 2:41-47, the birth of the Church which I will speak about shortly. The second source is an anecdote from the great football coach, Vince Lombardi. After one particularly bad game which saw the Packers get blown out, coach Lombardi walked into the locker room and told his team that they needed to get back to the basics of football. He started by holding up a football and declared to his team, “This is a football.” While it was probably humiliating for those players at the time, the concept of breaking things down to such a basic level, I thought, would be beneficial for the church to do as well. Church life can get so wrapped up in programs and fellowship and a bunch of other “good things” that we can begin to lose focus on the most important fundamentals of church life. So, this is in essence my way of saying to myself and other believers, “this is a football.”
A brief disclaimer; I realize that these pillars of devotion are not exhaustive by any means. But these areas of focus were chosen because I find them to be the most vital and fundamental. They are the best areas of focus upon which to build the rest of church life.
In the second picture above, you will see concentric circles. In the center is the cross, which represents Christ and His Gospel. From there, there is the individual believer. These believers are to make up tight-knit (in modern church terms) small groups or community groups. This is a close association and regular fellowship with a handful of other believers. These tight-knit community groups then come together weekly to make up the corporate body. As each individual grows in their relationship and understanding of Christ and His Gospel so too do those communities and the broader corporate body grow! But it all begins with each individual believer.
Now, turning to the scripture, we see in Acts 2:41-47 the birth of the early church. At its conception, the early church is portrayed as an almost idealized state. It almost seems like things were “perfect.” And in a sense they were. If you continue reading Acts, however, you’ll see that this golden age was short-lived as persecution and division arose. But it’s worth noting in this “golden age” of the early church, what they were doing, then replicating it in the modern church.
The four most fundamental areas of focus (or pillars) seen in this early church are devotion to the Word, gathering, prayer, and regular witnessing. Let’s look at each of these individually.
Devotion to the Word
Acts 2:42 states that these early converts “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings.” The word used for “devoted” implies as John Stott puts it, “persisting obstinately.” I love this idea of persisting obstinately in knowing and applying God’s Word. This is the vision I put before our church. We as individual members should be obstinately persisting in knowing and applying God’s Word in every aspect of our lives.
From an individual level, this looks like growing in your understanding of God’s Word by intaking it every day and letting God’s Spirit teach you to apply it. God’s Word should be meditated on and His instructions hidden in your heart through memorization. As individuals progress in this, they will see greater consistency in their daily devotions, greater understanding of God’s Word, and growth in the spiritual disciplines.
As individuals obstinately persist in knowing and living God’s Word, the community groups will see its members encourage each other, disciple each other, and observe spiritual growth among its members. They will be as iron sharpening iron.
Then, corporately, the church will reinforce this devotion by preaching expositional sermons, observing communion on a regular basis, and biblically worshiping God together. As its members grow in their biblical knowledge and application, the church will become a better reflection of Christ as we exist as His body and representatives on earth.
Devotion to Gathering
In the United States, especially in Alaska, we pride ourselves on our independence and self-sustenance. However, this is not how the early church approached their faith. They recognized the importance of living out their faith in community with other believers. This is why they dedicated themselves to gathering from house to house with one another. Too many American believers have let our culture of independence seep into our faith. God designed us to be in community with one another and so we should devote ourselves to this practice.
Now I’ve heard objections from some about church membership not being a biblical practice explicitly mentioned in the Bible. And to some extent that is true. The Bible nowhere says anything about having or maintaining a membership role. However, as you read accounts of the early church you’ll see Paul exhort Titus to select honorable men from among their numbers to serve as elders. Likewise, how were pastors supposed to distinguish those inside their flock and those outside? The writer of Hebrews wrote about those that “were among us,” tasted God’s gift, then rejected it. So, while yes, church membership roles are likely a later development, in practice, it has been around since the conception of the church.
With that said, we too ought to practice gathering together and committing ourselves to one another through church involvement and membership. Like the early church, we ought to individually bring our gifts, talents, passions, and troubles to a local body of other believers in order to encourage one another and build one another up. When we become vulnerable and approach church not from a consumerist mindset but from a servanthood mindset, we will see our churches grow, spiritually and numerically. In the end, we as individual church members should view the church gathering as a time to refresh others spiritually and become refreshed ourselves. It is a family we should desire to be with and invite others to join in with.
Devotion to Prayer
Have you ever had someone come up to you and share a heartbreaking situation with you and all you could do was say, “I’ll pray for that?” As a man, my initial reaction to problems is, “what can I do to fix it.” So, when it comes to prayer, in my own self-assuredness, prayer can sometimes make me feel a little helpless. But, the early church knew this truth well, that if this fledgling church was to survive in the absence of Jesus being there in person, it didn’t matter what they could do, but what God would do. This is why they were so devoted to prayer.
In the modern iteration of “church life,” many people think the answer to reaching the multitudes is by creating an attractional church. This is why “seeker-sensitive” churches are the newest fad. But if you listen to their theology and discipleship, you’ll discover it is usually very shallow in the best scenarios and heretical in the worst. A wise man said once said, “whatever you use to bring people to church, is what you will have to sustain in order to keep them there.” Now, I’m not knocking good church programs. The LORD certainly uses those in mighty ways. I imagine a good portion of believers today that have been believers since childhood came to Christ due to a VBS or church camp. But, in order to ensure that we and our church are growing spiritually according to God’s desire, prayer is an absolute necessity. We mustn’t ask, “what can we do,” but rather, “what can God do?”
As the revitalization pastor who likes to strategize and get concrete plans with concrete measurements in place in order to see growth both spiritually and numerically, prayer is the one thing that forces me to stay on God’s path rather than branch off in order to carve out my own. So, individually, we must be committed and devoted to prayer. I’ve never EVER heard anyone, not even the most mature of Christians, say that they think they pray too much. In fact, I don’t believe we could ever do such a feat. Even if we “prayed without ceasing,” there just aren’t enough hours in the day to pray too much.
So, as individuals, we must commit ourselves to praying regularly, growing in our desire and practice of lifting prayer to God. We should pray for boldness to live out our faith. We should pray that God would draw the lost to Himself. We should pray for openness to being used by God to draw people to Himself. We should pray for our leaders. We should pray for our families. The list is endless. But, we must strive to put everything in our lives, into God’s hands.
When we do this as individuals, guess what? God amplifies it when we pray together. We should celebrate answered prayers. We should intercede for one another. We should pray corporately! In Acts 4, after Peter and John are arrested, interrogated, then released, they return to their church and pray for boldness together. Then it says in 4:31 “When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.” May that be the case for all of our churches this year!
Devotion to Regular Witnessing
The early church was marked by their devotion to speaking the gospel boldly. When persecution from Saul broke out, it says in Acts 8:4 that as they were scattered, they all went out speaking the gospel as they went. For too long, the church has been content to let the pastor be the only one who shares the gospel. So people began to replace personal witnessing with just inviting people to church. Well, if you haven’t noticed, this tactic isn’t working. While yes, God can and does still use good preachers to proclaim the gospel from the pulpit and lead people to Christ, the most effective strategy out there is one that has been there from the birth of the church; personal evangelism.
I realize that many of the unsaved in our country are content to say, “you have your beliefs and I respect that but keep it to yourselves.” Sadly, many a believer has bought into this unbiblical practice for the sake of political correctness. But what marked the early church was that they actually believed what they said and the good news and their relationship with Christ so consumed them that sharing the gospel became as natural as breathing. It was part of their identity in Christ. Every member was a missionary.
May that be the case for our churches today. May every believer adopt this mindset. May all of us be so consumed by our infatuation with Christ that the gospel oozes from our lives and speech.
This is a Football
Going back full circle, these are some of the very basics of following Christ. To be a Christian is to be devoted to these four core disciplines. As you think of your own church this next year, look at it not from a consumerist mindset but as a gathering of God’s people who serve, love, disciple, teach, and pray for one another and then send their people out to be a missionary in their own contexts. Let’s stop fussing over the style of music, the length of the sermon, or the stage design, and let’s be devoted to Christ, to each other, and to these fundamental spiritual disciplines.
When I think about how much room to grow that I personally have in these areas, let alone lead others to grow in them, it can be daunting. However, if we all take responsibility for our own discipleship as individuals and bring that fervor to our community groups and corporate worship, the Church will see God’s Spirit move. Our churches will see a greater impact for the Kingdom. May it be so Lord!
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Trenton
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