Experience - Day 30

12 The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them. 14 Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women. 15 As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. 16 Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed.

Oh how I long to have this kind of church experience; one where signs and wonders are almost commonplace, where more and more people come to believe in the Lord, and where the curse from the Garden of Eden is reversed on a daily basis.

But all too often, when we think of church, we think of how long the sermon went, or that one song that got sung that we either loved or hated, or whether our coffee came quick enough (this last one may just be a struggle for Crosswalk people).  We tend to look at church as consumers, and not participants.  We wonder when the pastor is going to come up with the right idea to address my needs, or when the greeters are going to finally remember our name, or when our favorite social event will happen again.

Here’s the problem, as we see in the above text, “all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple.” All the believers were engaged in prayer, in sharing the good news, in caring for one another. This wasn’t a consumer audience, this was a group of people committed to living out the gospel of Jesus Christ, and amazing things happened.

I find it interesting that there were some who dared NOT join in with the movement.  Maybe they didn’t understand, maybe they disagreed, or maybe the commitment was going to cost too much for them and they liked their current status in society.  Whatever the case, there are always those that would rather sit on the sidelines and judge, then get involved.

But for those that chose to contribute, for those that were willing to participate in what the Spirit was up to, they saw miracles on a daily basis.

You might think this only happened at the birth of the church, but I see miracles all the time in our church.  It’s a miracle when someone who was hurt by church, somehow finds the courage to walk back into a church like Crosswalk and give it one last shot.  It’s a miracle when anyone chooses to surrender their life to Christ.  It’s a miracle when someone offers to serve as a volunteer.  There are miracles happening all around us if we open our eyes and hearts to what the Spirit is up to in the lives of those She leads to our communities.

So may you and I continue to meet together, in our homes, at our churches, in our communities, and have the courage to join in to what the Holy Spirit is doing in our midst.  When we do, my guess is, we’ll see even more miracles.

JOURNAL

1. What do you think a modern-day “early church” community should look like?  What kinds of activities are they involved in? 
2. How are you involved in your local community, working towards helping your community be that kind of church?
3. What is one thing you could commit to this week to help serve your church in some way or another? (this could mean writing a note to encourage a leader, it could mean giving to support the mission of the church, it could mean volunteering for a ministry you’ve been thinking about, it could mean joining a connect group, and so much more)