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“What Would the Earliest Christians Think of My Church?” Greetings, friends! I’m really grateful George has extended this opportunity to reconnect with you, and I pray you are well and at peace. Miriam and I moved to East Tennessee the very last day of March, 2025. We had been planning this for some time since our daughter, Charis, and her family live down here, and we are retired now. We ended up buying a new home in Jefferson City, about half an hour east of Knoxville, a bit farther from family than we had planned, but given the limited choices in an expensive resort area, this was our best option. At the time of our move, Miriam and I had been praying three prayers: “God, please give us the right people, the right place and a sense of purpose.” People, place, purpose - all words of Miriam’s choosing; spot-on, every one! The people piece naturally begins with our family here: Joe, Charis and their children, Stephen (7) and Mariah (4). We see them on average two or three times a week and remain ever so grateful for the gift of their loving presence. We don’t take this for granted since Miriam and I are both from Texas (though our homes there are about 700 miles apart) and have lived most of our lives in Illinois, where our son, Luke, and his family still reside. As for place, yes, we’re farther from Charis’s family than we had hoped to be (over 40 minutes), but we are finding our new digs offer rich opportunities in answer to that first prayer as well. So many people are moving into East Tennessee right now! We have met neighbors from Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and lots of folks from Florida (especially Miami) and have seen license plates in our little subdivision from New Jersey, Arkansas, California and, I forget, some other states-to-be-named as well. The other day we even met a couple from here in Tennessee, but they are the only Volunteer couple we have met in our subdivision to date! So, again, our place has offered us a rich opportunity to meet all kinds of new people as answered prayers are melding into each other, and frankly it’s pretty exciting. Recently, we went to a neighbor’s quite festive birthday party. Frequently, neighbors share their favorite foods with various people in the ‘hood’. Take Chris’s out-of-this-world Cubano sandwiches, for example. (He’s from Miami.) I’m hoping to see he’s fired up the grill every time I walk by his house! And it just feels like we’re beginning to look out for each other as we become more deeply acquainted. Miriam and I are even plotting a riverboat ride with a couple a few houses down, looking forward to spending significant time with another couple whose house near us is almost finished, and hoping to get to know a retired pastor and his wife, some of whose furniture I helped move into their new home not long ago. What we’re noticing more than anything is how all of our new neighbors are so eager to tell their stories and relieved, yes, relieved to find we are actually listening to and taking an interest in them. It is as if all of us crave friendship, a real chance at forming deep connections, especially as we have left close friends and, in most cases, family behind. And naturally all of this plays into the prayer for a sense of purpose. To be sure, we moved here for a purpose - family - but I was pretty concerned about stepping into a new town and not knowing even one person who resides here. (Remember, our kids are some 40+ minutes away.) Obviously, God is answering that prayer in surprising ways. Purpose is also tied of course to church and church to a very deep sense of belonging, because ultimately the people of God are our family, our home, wherever we happen to live. I had done several internet church searches long before we moved here, and we have attended no less than five churches in the four months we have lived in Tennessee. We decided not to rush this, to try and really get a good feel for the area before we settled into a specific church. To be clear, we’re not trying to find a church. There are so many churches in East Tennessee; it is never hard to find a church here. Nor are we shopping for a church, a common metaphor for people who move from church to church searching for one that suits their preferences. Real belonging in the Body of Christ is not, and never has been, about preferences. At times, I have caught myself repenting from church to church as I’ve made premature judgments about this or that program, mission statement, sermon, musical selection, and so on. After all, we live in a menu-driven, option-oriented, consumerist culture, and it’s so easy to fall into the trap of seeing church in this way, as among all of the many choices we make based upon our leanings. Actually, one of the things Miriam and I have discovered in attending multiple churches is just how rich the specific practices of various churches are, how they complement one another. In a way, we wish we could be a part of all of them - and, of course, in one sense we are - but in reality we’ve got to choose a church, one expression of Christ’s Body from the many we’ve attended. So how do we do this? There are all kinds of criteria in the Book of Acts for what we would call a “healthy” church today: (1) Are its servant-leaders filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit? (Acts 6:5), (2) Is the church serious about accepting and caring for people who don’t seem to fit its linguistic, economic, racial and/or religious demographics? (Acts 6:1-7; 8:4-8; 10:9-16; 15:1-35), (3) Are its members honest about their giving? (Acts 5:1-11), (4) Is the church bold and truthful in its proclamation? (Acts 7:1-60), (5) How seriously does the church take the Great Commission? (Acts 13:1-28:31), (6) Is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead central to its proclamation? (Acts 2:32 and many others), and (7) In which churches is the Holy Spirit most clearly at work? (Acts 2:4; 4:31; etc.). These criteria are absolutely crucial in deciding whom we’ll worship with. But there are four more “hallmarks” (borrowing a metaphor from John Stott) which define the early Jerusalem church as clearly authentic, all of them housed in one verse (Acts 2:42). The first is apostolic teaching, the absolute bedrock of orthodox Christian preaching in any age. If the truth of Jesus’ life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, exaltation and return - the Gospel core - is being exchanged in a church for self-help (at the expense of helping others), purely national interests (rather than God’s transnational Kingdom interests), or any other form of substituting the ultimate and eternal gospel for secondary and purely temporal preferences, then we are no longer fronting the apostles’ teaching. Second, fellowship is a hallmark of God’s people, and it begins with God - the Father (1 John 1:3), Son (1 Corinthians 1:9) and Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14) - a vertical fellowship which, in turn, both initiates and sustains all horizontal fellowship among God’s people (1 John 1:3, 7). And just what is this fellowship, this sharing, this common (Greek koine) life among God’s people? Among other things, it involves shared Spirit and testimony (Acts 1:8), shared belief and belongings (Acts 2:44), and a shared table (Acts 2:46). There’s so much more, but the critical idea here is that the early church had things in common. It’s among the first lessons we learn as children, this sharing, but somehow the lesson is often lost to higher salaries and selfish interests over time, and we forfeit our childlike koine. Third, does the church break bread together? In Luke, these words could easily refer to sharing a meal, but also and more specifically, they signify the Lord’s Supper. By the second century, it is clear that many Christians were doing this daily. In some instances, the Lord’s Supper was even accompanied by a full meal. It is quite possible, though not certain, that in telling us that the early Jerusalem Christians broke bread in their homes daily Luke is actually saying that they shared what we called communion daily. One can never give too much time or attention to this sacred act. As my friend Tom Gerdts once put it, “If God is not here now, at this moment (during communion), I don’t know where he is!” Whenever we do this, we just cannot afford to rush the Lord’s Supper. Fourth, and finally, there were the prayers. Actually, the word prayer (proseuxais) is plural in Greek, though some modern English translations such as the NIV render it “prayer” (singular), which I think is unfortunate. “Prayer” is too nebulous, too abstract for what Luke actually has in mind. But “prayers” is accurate. Here’s why. Just as Muslims drop everything five times a day to pray to Allah as a public act of consecration, Jews, ancient and modern, drop everything to pray three times daily. It is my belief that, just because some Jews became Christians on the Day of Pentecost, this does not mean that they abandoned the custom of praying three times daily. In other words, early Jewish Christians did not by virtue of becoming Christian abandon all their Jewish religious and ritual practices. Prayer is too important to relegate to a brief season, morning or evening (or whatever seems convenient), as we begin or close the day. Prayer, especially communal prayer, so common in Acts, was and remains central to the life of any thriving church. There are many prayer guides which may assist you in regular daily prayers. For example, I keep Phyllis Tickle’s books, The Divine Hours, A Manual for Prayer (three volumes), on the dinner table, offering prayers with daily meals. These then are among the many criteria in Acts for a healthy church. May I suggest that if yours doesn’t measure up (and truthfully, no church is getting it all right), don’t go shopping for another. Work hard at improving yours! Ask yourself, “What would Peter or Paul or Luke think of my church, of our Christianity?, ” and of course, “What does God think of it? How would Jesus view our website? Mission statement? As competing against other churches or just trying to be faithful? What, really, is this church all about? Why is it here?” Miriam and I have decided to worship locally at a church that’s paying attention to these criteria because our neighbors, virtually all of them from out of state, are counting on God’s people to love and welcome them, whether they know it or not. Love you, friends. All Blessings! Neal
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