Acts 2 Church

As we talk about what it means for the main difference between the church and the world to be fellowship, it leads naturally into our Communion devotional for this week. 

The church, from her history, was modeled after the way the disciples took Jesus's ministry to heart after His resurrection and set about spreading His message - the Good News - in the world. For many churches today, that means we look back at Acts 2:42 when the church was just starting to form, and we do our best to model our meeting after theirs. 

And Acts tells us that the early church (which the Bible doesn't even call a "church," but a "community" in some translations, which should tell us something important, as well) "continually committed themselves to 1) learning from the apostles, 2) gathering for fellowship, 3) breaking bread, and 4) praying. (Number divisions mine.) 

Just two sentences later, Acts tells us, "There was an intense sense of togetherness among all who believed." 

Wow. 

So we have a community who was committed to fellowship with an intense sense of togetherness, and this is the example that we say we're modeling our churches off of, but sadly, when we say it, I think we too often mean that we're getting the elements of the actual gathering correct - teaching, Communion, prayer. 

But the early church wasn't so interested in the elements of the gathering; their heart was in the gathering itself. 

It's how we get so many "one anothers" in their example. 

And so, too, is this Table a togetherness. 

We're so used to our convenience culture and our church of elements where we kind of just browse around the world and pick and choose and consume whatever seems to fit us, and we're relatively mindless of others, who we assume are also just browsing around and picking to their liking. Like we're all living our own "choose your own adventure" novels, even when it comes to our faith and our church experience. 

I have watched congregations as the Table is set, as the elements are passed. Each person takes the cracker and the juice and does their own thing with it. Some pray after the person leading the devotion prays, while others are already eating their portion. Some take their portion and enter their own private devotional while someone else is addressing the entire congregation. Some are so busy passing the meal to others (be they ushers or parents or friends or whatever) that they take their portion almost as an afterthought, as just the element. 

For the early church, the breaking of bread was never just an element. It was an integral part of their fellowship. Their togetherness. Their commitment. This breaking bread together, which is something it is so easy for us to forget in our content-focused, experience-driven, consumer-culture churches. 

But if we're truly modeling ourselves after the early church, just breaking the bread isn't enough. That's not what it was about. (That's not even what it was about in the Upper Room, if you want to get technical.) 

What it's about is doing it together. As a community who is committed to fellowship. 

That's the church. 

That's the Table.  

One Another

So why do you go to church? 

At the heart of it, the only thing that makes the church fundamentally different than what the world offers is that it is (or is supposed to be) through-and-through a fellowship experience. You're not supposed to be able to do church "alone." You're not supposed to be able to just go and consume content or have a sensory experience or even have a human experience; church is intended to be a shared experience. A fellowship. 

And it is here that so many of our churches are fundamentally failing. 

It's fellowship that keeps folks in the church. 

We've already discussed how they can consume content from anywhere on the planet. The truth is that for a lot of churches, they can even consume your content from the little content device in their pocket. So it doesn't really matter how good your content is; a world that's just looking for content can find it in spades. They don't need your church for that. 

We've also discussed how they can have a sensory experience very well at home. With big screen televisions, home projectors, sound systems with bass boost, even popcorn or crackers or juice or bread or whatever in their own pantry, it's entirely possible to have the full church sensory experience at home. So it doesn't really matter how good your production is, either; a world that's looking for a sensory experience can have it just fine on its own. They don't need your church for that. 

They don't even need your church to have a human experience. There are plenty of places in this world that they can go to be doing the same things that others are doing and draw on the human reactions of those other persons - shopping at the mall, eating at a restaurant, sitting in a movie theater, playing at a park. The world is full of parallel play opportunities. They don't need your church for that. 

To an extent, we could even say they don't need your church for a shared human experience. That's what friends and family and coworkers are for. Most persons have at least one person they can call if they want to make a memory, to form a connection, to have a moment together. 

The difference in the church is that the shared human experience is fundamental to it. It's not optional. You don't have to go looking for it. Or, you shouldn't have to. Walking into a church should be automatically walking into a place where you're having a shared human experience, where the connection between persons is the most fundamental thing about it. 

We've lost sight of this. And that's why so many of our folks are leaving our churches and looking elsewhere. They are realizing that the one thing that the church is supposed to have in abundance, that the church is supposed to be above and beyond all else, is lacking. If they walk into a church, even if they walk into a church for 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more and at some point realize they are just consuming content, just having a sensory experience, just having a human experience, then that's the point at which they're going to walk out. Because at some point, they realize they can do that basically - virtually - anywhere. 

I think that's why Jesus told us to love one another. 

It's truly the only thing that sets us apart from literally everything else. 

Fellowship

So why do you go to church? We've determined it's not for the content; you can get content anywhere in this world, even right in your pocket. It's partially for the experience, but not really for the sensory experience of it because we've done pretty well at mastering the "home experience," all things considered. 

There's something about the human experience, but we left off yesterday saying that it's something even more than that. And it is. 

That something more is the fellowship. 

That's what takes the church experience up a notch. 

Let's go back to our movie theater analogy. We know that the movie is better when you see it in a theater because you have the emotional and physical realities of the other viewers to bounce off of. You laugh harder when others are laughing. You let the suspense capture you when you have the security of a room full of other persons. You weep a little more freely when the person next to you is reaching for a tissue. 

That's all well and good. It takes our movie experience to a deeper dimension. But once the lights come up and the credits roll and you go to the parking lot, then what? Unless at least one of the persons in that movie theater was your friend or relative or someone significant in your life, the experience is over. You can talk about it with anyone you want to, but you can't really share it with anyone else again. 

You don't know those persons. There's not going to come a point when you're going to run into one of those persons in a McDonald's somewhere and be like, "Hey, do you remember that time that we saw Ernest Goes to Jail in the theater together?" Even if that were to happen, they would probably look at you like you were crazy. You might have been there at the same time, but you weren't there together. 

Contrast that with a good friend who went to the movie with you and sat right next to you. Someone whose reactions helped to fuel your own, but someone who also noticed your reactions just as much as you noticed theirs. Now, when you're hanging out with your friend or your brother or your sister or whoever and you say something like, "Hey, you remember when we saw Ernest Goes to Jail together?" you can both just bust up laughing at that thing or that scene or whatever because you have a truly shared experience.

That is, at its very best, what church is supposed to be. Not just a human experience, but a shared human experience. 

A fellowship. 

These persons in the pews - they're your friends. Your good friends. Your brothers. Your sisters. These are the folks you are supposed to be able to look at at any point in your life and say, "Hey, do you remember the time....?" and they're supposed to go, "Yeah, I do!" And you both bust up laughing or crying or hugging or praying or whatever it is you do together in response to that moment you shared. 

See, a church isn't made by a bunch of folks being in the same place at the same time; it's made by a bunch of folks being together. Drawn into and connected with one another. (Which, by the way, is one of the most popular phrases of the New Testament - "one another.") 

That's really what we go to church for. It's not the content. It's not the experience. It's not even the human experience, although that gets us closer. It's the fellowship. The togetherness. The connection. 

An Experience

So why do you go to church? 

We saw yesterday that when we're asked this question, many of us talk highly of the content of the church experience, but in a content-driven world where we carry little content devices in our pockets, content isn't what keeps us coming back. 

It's the experience. 

Think about it like this: we live in a world of content, and we also live in a world of streaming. Nearly anything you could want to see, media-wise, you can stream in the comfort of your own living room. You might have to wait a little longer than the big release, but it'll be there. But the experience of watching a movie in your living room is far different than watching it in a movie theater. 

We have tried to replicate this. We have created surround-sound systems and ginormous screens for our own homes so that we get the sensory-immersive experience of being in the theater - our eyes having to move back and forth across the screen to get the whole picture, our bodies feeling the vibrations of the sound. We turn the lights down so there are no distractions. We are even getting really good at homemade popcorn - "movie theater butter" flavor. 

We've nailed the "home experience." 

Except...we haven't. 

Because there's still something special about watching a movie in the theater. Ask the average person, and they can't explain it. They can't tell you why it's better. They might say it's the bigger screen or the audio system or the snacks, but that's only because they can't put their finger on it. 

The truth is...it's the shared experience. 

When we watch a movie in a movie theater, we have the added bonus of having the reactions of other human beings in the room. This encourages us to get in touch with our own experience in a new way. 

Something might strike you as funny in your living room, but when you hear a dozen other persons start to chuckle, the humor hits you in a different way. You can't let yourself get too caught up in the suspense of a moment in your own house, but there's safety in numbers, and if you're all caught up in the same suspense, there's just something different about it. When you see the person next to you reaching for a tissue at the most touching moment, it gives you a little bit more permission to cry. 

Watching a movie at home is a content experience; watching a movie in the theater is a human experience. 

And that's what the church is. That's why we go to church. 

We can sit at home and read the Bible and sing worship songs and pray all we want, but there's something about doing it together, about having other humans in the same room who are having human reactions to the content, who give us permission to also have human reactions to the content, who help us have a safe space to open our hearts to really be affected by things, who confirm what we're experiencing, who draw us deeper. Reading the Bible in your living room, turning on the radio, streaming the service is a content experience. 

But church...church is a human experience. 

And it's even better than that.... 

Content

Why do you go to church? 

Many folks will tell you that they love the preaching at their church. Or the music. That they go to fill up their soul with Jesus by having this space where they ingest deeply from His Word and His love. Or maybe they go to "learn" how to be a "better Christian," to grow in their faith by receiving the instruction of more seasoned saints or the wisdom of the structured format of church teaching. 

Here's the thing, though: that's not really it. 

We live in a content-driven world. We are constantly bombarded by content. We hold little content devices in the palms of our hands. (Okay, full confession: I'm writing this on a desktop computer right now, like I always do. So...most of us hold little content devices in the palms of our hands.) If you are just looking for the content of church, there are a million other ways to get it than actually going to a physical building on Sunday morning. 

In fact, we have learned this quite well because of the pandemic. Churches all over the world shut their doors for a period and many transitioned their services to online. It's now common for someone to simply stay home on Sunday morning and "stream" a preacher and a worship team from anywhere in the world - across town, across the country, across the globe. No matter where you are, if you've got your little content device, you have access to "church."

But do you really?  

I am not trying to downplay how wonderful it is that the church is stretching out of her buildings to embrace a new demographic of persons. I think virtual church is wonderful for those who find themselves shut in for a season, usually by sickness. It lets us stay connected to our congregation while protecting ourselves or others by not being physically present with them (passing germs around, compromising immune systems, etc.). 

But it's not church. 

Content alone is not church. 

In our heart of hearts, we know this. Someone who is connected to a church only for its content quickly realizes all of the other places in the world that that content is available. The content they do engage with quickly becomes boring. It's always fun to pick up a new book but if you tell yourself you're always going to read for at least an hour, it can quickly become tiresome to try to pick up the book at all. In the same way, it can be fun to go to church for a sermon and some music, but it's really easy to fall into a rut when that hour seems to start stretching longer and longer and...it's because you're bored. It's because the content isn't really the thing, even though that's what you think you came for. 

There's content all around us. There's Gospel-centered content all around us. In terms of content, the church doesn't really have anything special to offer. And, actually, that's not what the first church came together around anyway. If you told anyone in the book of Acts that you came just to be preached to and to sing a little, they would look at you like you were crazy. 

No, there's more to the church than content. And we'd do well to pay attention to what that is.