A real New Testament church

One of the things that you hear a lot among pastors is that they each want their church to be a “New Testament church.”  This is usually code for “my church is dying and it’d really help if we could add a lot of new members in one day that tithe.”

Sad. Not sad because pastors would like more members, or even that they’d like those members to give, but sad because we’ve allowed a verse like Acts 2:41 to become the standard that measures what the early church was like.  Yes, they had 3,000 people join the roll that day, but the bulk of the church growth took place daily as the followers of a risen Lord lived lives that were, as Acts 2:42 says, devoted to each other.

They learned together, lived together, ate together, prayed together.

They saw signs together, served the needy together, praised God together, celebrated together.

Any church that lacks that cannot call itself a New testament church, no matter how big it is or how fast it got there.  Let me see if I can explain why it matters like this:

Yesterday I tweeted this: “Hype relocates. Hope reforms.”  The point I was making is that hype – while not an altogether bad thing – can’t do anything more than move us.  We use it to escape for a period of time, but eventually we find ourselves back where we were.  Realistically, of course, we don’t end up where we were, because hype will always leave us wanting more, and since the latest and greatest thing will eventually become the oldest and slowest thing, hype becomes the tail that the dog always chases but never quite catches.

In a service, hype moves our problems just beyond reach…temporarily.  But ultimately, hype fails.  It doesn’t make excitement a bad thing, or slick marketing a bad strategy.  It just makes hype what it really is: the wrapping that makes us want to open the present.

I think a lot of churches would do a better job of reaching the lost in their cities if they gave hype a try, as long as they understand that it can only take them so far.  And that’s where hope comes in.

Hope has the power to reform us.  To change the way we see the things around us.  While hype fascinates us, hope fills us.  When hype fails, hope holds firm.  Not because hope in and of itself is so great, but because our hope is in something – more specifically, Someone – that can be counted on to deliver (Hebrews 11:1).  Hype leaves us wondering, but hope leaves us watching.  While one can often lead to empty promises, the other always leads to expectation.

Sure, the best of all worlds is hype that leads to hope, but that will only happen when those of us who follow Jesus actually follow Him together after the lights fade and the fog machines are unplugged.  If we can’t do that, then the thousands that joined on one day will be the thousands that leave when the next big thing comes to town.

And that, my friends, isn’t a New Testament church.

It’s a 21st century one.

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