Certainly there are churches that are reaching the middle class, especially those who preach some form of the prosperity gospel.  Many of these congregations are quite large in size.  The question I would raise is are they calling people to discipleship or are they just blessing their class values?  Jesus neither avoids nor condemns the rich because for their wealth or class status.  Neither does he say that they are more blessed because of it.  What Jesus does do is show real compassion by challenging their values and their commitment to him.

Look at the story of the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18ff).  He comes to Jesus asking what he must do to be saved.  A logical and reasonable question.  People want to know what they can do, themselves, to be saved.  Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, to which he replied that he always has even from his youth.  He views himself as good and religious, possibly even blessed by God.

Would we welcome such a man into our midst?  Would we see him as he sees himself as a righteous man?  Would we see him as a way to help maintain the budget?  He seems to be a good man who wants to do the right thing.

Jesus is truly concerned about the mans spiritual condition and so he takes him back to the first commandment and tells him that he is more in love with what he owns than he is with God.  “Sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow me,” Jesus tells him.  The man leaves sad and down cast and the disciples are confused.  “If this man can’t be saved than who can,” they reason.  Jesus takes their focus off the man and puts it back on God where it belongs.  “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The well to do need to be reached out to.  They need to be seen as people lost and in need of a savior.  Though society might see them as okay the church knows better.  None are okay with out Jesus.  They are not a group of people who need to be wooed because of the resources that they can bring to the church they need to be challenged to trust Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.  Many, like the rich young man think that they are okay, they are not.  Too often we forget that and we invite them in and welcome them without challenging their values or we ignore them as we go in search of more traditional urban ministries.  The well off are a needed part of the kingdom of God.  They have an important role to play in make our cities places that reflect the glory of God.  They must be seen as more than funders for our projects.

People who are successful are successful for a reason.  They must not be shunned of made to feel guilty for their success, bu must be saved into the kingdom and challenged to use their talents for the the common good.  In Acts when the Holy Spirit moved the well to do shared with the needy because of the relationships they had with each other.  The result was real change.  The class structures of the society at large were dismantled in the church.

Instead of a divide and conquer mentality should we not throw our net wide and bring all people into the kingdom so that God might give each of us the opportunity to share our talents with each other so that their would be no needy among us?

A good friend of mine says that an emphasis of the church should be to “save whitie”.  Not very politically correct I will admit but never-the-less I think he has a valid point.  We are quick to reach out to those outside our culture with the gospel, yet we all to often take a maintenance approach when it comes to reaching people like ourselves.  What keeps us from making the same effort to reach white ethnics that we do when it comes to reaching other groups?

Do we see the same need to reach our own that we have toward reaching others?  I wonder if we still view missions through the eyes of colonialism.  Do we see ourselves as senders and take some satisfaction from that and not see ourselves as receivers in need of the gospel?  Do we have the attitude that if we just hold church they will come?  Have we, are we, failing to reach our Jerusalem because we have lost touch with our own culture?  Have we gotten to the place where we the church is speaking a language that now else around us is speaking?  Do we lack the gifts of communicating our faith to our own people?

I know that we are concerned that many of our churches are in decline, certainly not all but I would argue way too many.  We are a slowly shrinking denomination.  Many churches are wrestling with music and liturgy trying to be relevant in the hopes that people might come and worship.  These are important questions that we think about at Church for All Nations, and I would never down play there importance, but they are in house issues not evangelistic ones.

Why is it that there are huge black and Latino churches in our cities?  Why do store front churches line the streets in our poor neighbors?  Why are we not drawing converts from the upwardly mobile communities?  Are we holding on to something that is holding us back?

We are doing a poor job of reaching the cities for Christ.  We are not raising up leaders who can hit the ground running.  There is no mission strategy in place that has a component for training urban missionaries.  To argue that we are putting our efforts in reaching the suburbs is a losing strategy in the long run.  If we don’t reach the cities for Christ the cities will and are reaching out to the rest of the country.

Just take a look at Hip Hop culture.  Hip Hop is a urban phenomena that started in the South Bronx when a DJ named Kool Herc wanted to get the party started.  What started in a poor neighborhood in the Bronx has grown to touch the lives of young people throughout the world.  It has an evangelical zeal that reaches into the smallest communities in our country.  It is inescapable.  The media is effecting the way we think and act as a culture.  You can’t write of the cities and you can’t hide from their influences.  What starts in the city will spread, through the entertainment world, until it reaches us all in our secluded outposts.

We are missing the point when we spend our time only on external issues.  We need to be training and sending our people into the highways and byways compelling the lost to come.  Our people young and old are not sharing our understanding about God.  Many have never darkened the doors of a church but they have all been effected and changed by the messages they are receiving daily into their homes.

Jesus told us to go, not to maintain.  If we focus on maintenance we will become more and more irrelevant an eventually die.  In the 50’s our churches were full.  That is no longer the case.  There was a shared church culture then that made it easy for us to grow.  This is no longer the case.  We can make excuses that we are holding steadfastly to the truth, but the facts remain.  We are speaking, if at all, a language that no one understands.  We are answering questions no one is asking.  We are taking comfort in our doctrinal purity while the multitudes are wondering lost, like sheep without a shepherd.

Each week from the Atlantic District Office of the LCMS I receive a Stop, Drop and Pray alert.  Three or four mission needs are sent out to pastors and lay members who have committed to stop, drop what they are doing and offer up prayer for the needs that are sent out that week.  It is a good reminder to me to pray for the mission needs of the wider district.  From time to time I also receive request to pray from the district office when special needs arise; someone is sick, a family member has been taken home to meet the Lord, or a church body has a special request.  This too reminds me to pray for the greater church.  I also receive monthly prayer requests from Concerts of Prayer, the YMCA, and Redeemer’s Church Planting network.  These also remind me to pray for the wider body of Christ living and ministering in the Greater New York City area.  All of these are useful and helpful reminders to me to pray.  And I am grateful for them all.

Recently I have been reading some things that call the church back to the ancient idea of the Daily Office.  The word office comes from the Latin opus.  This same root word gives us the word offering.  The Daily Office is our daily offering of prayers to God.  They were set prayers that were to be offered throughout the day.  They were a way of keeping the day holy before God.  After the Reformation the mainline liturgical churches kept up the practice.  The Lutheran Service Book has five Daily Offices; Matins, Vespers, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline—Prayer at the Close of the Day.  Yet this practive of saying the Daily Office is hardly practiced anywhere.

The Daily Office, if practiced, would enhance the life of the one involved in the practice in many ways.  The Daily Office provides a regular reading of the scriptures.  Reading the Bible as part of ones devotional life encourages one to be receptive to the message of God.

The Daily Office also creates an atmosphere of praise and reflection.  It encourages devotional meditation.  In our hectic lives coming aside at different points in the day to meditation purposefully on God would help u s to restore our communion with him.

Prayer is also a sacramental activity.  When we pray we do not pray alone, God is always present, and when we pray are prayers are join with all others who pray.  The whole church remembers God as we pray.

As we pray the Daily Office we see how all of creation shares in the ceaseless praise of our God.  In reality the Daily Office is the work of God.  We join our prayes with the prayers of Jesus that go before the Father and our praise on earth joins the present praise in heaven and we become part of the fullness of the praise of all creation.

The Daily Office consists of the praise of God in psalms, scripture readings and intercessory prayer.  These are things the church understands it should be about; Paul says, “without ceasing.”  How good would it be if the whole church engaged in practicing the Daily Office.  Though the prayers are said alone the fact that we shared the same format would help us to understand that in fact we never pray alone.             

I live around the cornor from a Mosque and a large number of churches.  The bells of the churches are silent.  They no longer ring calling the people of God to worship or to prayer.  But each morning at 6 am and at various times during the day the horn of the mosque is sounded call the Muslim worshipers to prayer.    Do they understand something that we have lost?

I don’t know if the idea of the Daily Office will have a wide appeal.  For the last number of generations the body of Christ, at least in the circles I have moved in, have learned to throw up prayers to God on the go.  It seemed to make sense in our fast paced society.  There is also the idea that if prayer is impromptu it is somehow more real and sincere.   Nothing could be farther from the truth.  We are a people with a history.  We should take the wisdom and the prayers of those who went before us and offer them up to God as we at the same time add our voices and our needs to the cries that go before the throne of God.

I think when it comes to prayer we become overwhelmed by the task.  Some have the gift of prayer and it seems second nature to them.  But most of us, though we want to and we know we should become overwhelmed by the task and the responsibility.  Maybe if we fell in line with the practices of the saints that went before us prayer, worship, devotion and meditation would as some point become second nature to us.                                     

This leaves the church in an uncomfortable position.  The church is to be the prophetic voice of God that speaks to the moral and ethical issues of the society.  She has a two fold role regarding what takes place in the society that she finds herself in.  In this instance it is American society.  On one level the church is involved intimately in what takes place.  As citizens of this land we, as Christians, are to be active participants.  Jesus tells us that we are to be salt and light preserving and illuminating the society.  We are also to speak the “thus says the Lord” concerning issues that are clearly addressed in the scriptures.

The issue of gay marriage is a hot topic in our society at this point in time and it is even dividing the church.  The Episcopal church is in turmoil over their official stance regarding gay marriage and different synods of the Lutheran church are divided as well.

The confusion comes when we fail to look at what the scripture says.  What disturbs me about all the discussion concerning this issues it that it is steeped in people’s feelings.  What needs to be done is to consider what God has to say no matter what we might feel about the issue.  Everyone has a friend or relative in the life style and they want them to be happy.  All that is well and good but there are some foundational things that must come into play.

We must deal with original sin.  We are all by nature sinful and fall short of the glory of God.  Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  We cannot rely on what we think is right or on how we feel.  That is why the church turns to the only clear revealed will of God that as found in the Bible.  That is where the discussion must take place within the church.  Too often we let the world determine the paramiters of the debate and therefore we can never come to a Biblical conclusion.

The debate in greater society is a different one.  We do not live in a theogracy.  Our decisions as a nation are decided by the will of the people.  We can live law abiding lives and be outside of the will of God.  People have the right to live together as same-sex couples without the blessing of the church.  Issues of rights granted by the government must be decided by the government.  As citizens we should and must express our opinion based on our Christian perspective.  Things might go against us as they are made by the will of the people.

So what are we to do?  We must be clear about what the Bible says about same-sex relationships, as well as what it says about other moral issues being raised by society.  We can never compromise our stance.  Our battle is tied to our mission.  On some level laws can regulate behavior but they can never change a persons heart, that is the work of the Holy spirit.  The church is commissioned to make disciples of all nations.  What we need to be about first and fore most is spreading the kingdom of God.  As people are born again they take on the values of the kingdom.  Jesus made it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that it is the issues of the heart that matter, for out of the heart flow the issues of life.

I think the church is going to experience growing opposition  as time goes on.  Those who support same-sex unions will not be content to win in the courts but want everyone to agree with their position.  Those that do not will be viewed as homophobes.  There will be no room for honest disagreement.  The church will need to be strong.

I don’t think this bodes well for us as a nations but it does not change our mission as the church to reach people for Christ.  In many ways it might shake us from our lethergy.  Wether we like it or not, times they are a change’n.  Let us draw near to God as he draws near to us and let us prepare dillegently for the work ahead.

When one looks over church history it is the missionaries that move the church forward.  They are the ones at the forefront of change and they are the leaders who become the driving force for kingdom growth.  Starting with the apostle Paul every great movement in church history is marked by a leader(s) who heads up the mission outreach of the church at the time.  Given Jesus commission to “go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,” this is what one would expect.

Recently I have been looking at and preaching on the Great Commission.  It is the last thing Jesus gave the church to do and to continue to do until he returns.  Shortly after his ascension Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower the church to do the work of the mission that he started when he was among us.  The spreading of the kingdom by making disciples is the chief responsibility of the church.  We are commanded by Jesus to make disciples, we are filled with the Holy Spirit that empowers us for the mission, and we are told that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church.

The image of the gates of Hell is a powerful one for me.  It is Hell and all of its evil forces and powers who are pictured trying to withstand the onslaught of the church.  Gates are defenses.  The gates of Hell are not strong enough to hold back the spreading kingdom.  To often we picture and act as if the church is on the defense.  We huddle in our places of worship trying to hold back the attacks of Satan and his cohorts.  We have it in reverse.

This hold the fort mentality leads to frustration and a hopelessness that is evident in many churches where the joy of the Lord is absent and people are just trying to maintain.  The world is seen as too big to conquer, and it’s problems insurmountable.  You witness this as you trace the movements of congregations in the city.  The plagues on their buildings tell the sad story.  They started in one community and then as the neighborhoods changed they continually moved farther and farther from their original location.  There are lots of reasons for these moves, but one that cannot be denied is that the neighborhood change was viewed as decline and the church was moving to greener pastures.

We have bought into this idea and made it a part of our culture.  What was needed to sustain this model were chaplains who would minister to the people in the pews exclusively.  They were open to and would embrace any who wondered in and made themselves at home, but the focus was exclusively inward.  So year after year seminarians were trained to be essentially chaplains of the church.  The result is seen in small congregations with many empty seats.

Before I go on let me say up front that the people in the pews must be nurtured and ministered to.  That having been said they need to be equipped for the ministry.  The role of the pastor according to Paul is to train the church for the work of the ministry.  What we need is trained missionary pastors who spend time training the church to do the work of the mission.

Immediately we want to turn to programs to reverse the declining in our congregations.  What is needed is church bodies that see their purpose as existing for the sole reason of spreading the kingdom of God.  Pastors need to be equipped to build up existing churches, plant new churches, and evangelize the unchurched not just on foreign soil, but right here on the streets of the cities of America.  They must also be instructed on how to not only teach the Christian faith but on how to train those in their congregation to take the gospel into the places they work and play.

Chaplains or missionaries?  Chaplains are needed but they don’t spread the kingdom.  We need to get back to first things first.  Go make disciples of all nations under the power of the Holy Spirit is our commission.  It is where we need to put our focus and attention.  Our best and brightest need to be trained to spread the kingdom of God not just to maintain the status quo.  Let’s stop holding the fort and start breaking down the gates of Hell.

Chapter 5 is the first time that dissension arises in the church.  Here is were the church today needs to take heed to the warning of scripture.  This chapter begins with the story of Ananias and Sapphira.  This couple was a part of the early church community.  They were witnesses to all that was being done by the church and the blessings that were being poured out upon the church by God.  Like many today these two wanted to reap the blessings with out paying the price.  They wanted to be insiders in the church without the commitment of their resources to the needs of those around them.

The couple had a piece of land that they sold.  The land was their”s to do with as they pleased.  Having sold the land they brought some of the proceeds of the sale and laid it at the feet of the apostles; they brought it to the church for use in the ministry.  All of this was fine and they could have gone on with out a problem.  The only glitch was that they led the apostles and the entire church to believe that their offering was the entire sum of the sale of their property.  Whether they out right lied at first or tried to deceive the church by implication we don’t know.  What we do know was that the deception was deliberate.  They wanted to look spiritual and important in the eyes of their fellow believers, but still remain in control of their money.

How often do people put on a show of spirituality when in the company of other believers?  They come to church looking all pious and spiritual.  They brag about all that they are doing for the Lord when in fact its all a sham.  Ananias and Sapphira wanted the reputation with out earning it.  They wanted to look the part rather than live it.  To make a long story short they dropped dead when their secret was brought into the light of day.

Peter told them that they were not lying to the church but to the Holy Spirit.  What we do is seen by God.  We can deceive one another but we can’t deceive God.  The result was that fear came upon the whole church.  People saw that God was not playing and they took seriously their walk with him.

The church that fails to share its resources with those in need yet deceive themselves into thinking all is well stand in the place of Ananias and Sapphira.  The prosperity doctrine that so many hold on to plays against all that the early church stood for.  Those preaches who rake in all the money offered to them and fail to distribute it as needed walk a dangerous path.  We forget that God is serious about the church coming together as a community and taking care of each others needs.  What we have been given has been given to us for the good of others.  “No one thought that what they had belonged to them.”  What we have is a gift from God to share with others.  Freely we have received, freely we are to give.

God shows no partiality and neither should we.  The church is set back every time it leans on its own understanding and it’s own resources.  We are to trust God in everything and joyously give, not out of our abundance, but like the Macedonians, out of our need.  Equality comes when each group brings their gifts to the table and all is shared for the good of the whole.

My experience is that when people empowered give to those in need without recoprocity the needy walk away feeling like second class citizens.  When each freely give, and everyone has something to give, we become dependant upon each other for our survival and God is exalted and he adds to the numbers of believers those who he is saving daily.

The role of the church is to speak the word of God with boldness.  God’s role is to do the signs and wonders that reveal his presence among us.  The church was focused on the mission.  It did not turn inward and lick its wounds.  It did not move to a survival mode.  The early church, under stiff opposition, was concerned about the spread of the kingdom of God, the mission.  Jesus last words to us before he ascended was to go and make disciples of all nations through baptism and instruction.  The early church did not lose sight of that commission.

It is at this point that Luke gives us another look at life in the early church.  Everyone was of the same mind.  A mind set on the mission of the church.  They were of one heart and soul.  There was unity in the church.  The question I pose at this point is there unity in the church today?  Do our local congregations experience unity?  The unity of the early church was around the Great Commission.  They had one focus.  The Christ story so caught them up that even their own safety took a back set to what they were called to.

This was not a naive unity.  They didn’t  think that all  would be well for them now that they were followers of Jesus.  Quite the contrary.  They knew the cost of discipleship, there leaders were being arrested and tried.  They faced the opposition head on, unity around a common enemy, and they prayed for boldness to carry on the mission of Jesus.  The cost of obedience to Christ drew them together.  Their servival rested upon their sharing their lives with one another.  Deep relationships develeoped because of their shared commitment to the work of christ.  “…no one said than any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”

This is not a discription of a small house church.  This is a discription of the whole church in Jerusalem at the time.  If the world is set against the church of Jesus Christ than it is set against the whole church of God and we must be willing to work with and share our resources with anyone who names the name of Christ.  We have the same mission and the same purpose.

The result was great power coming upon the apostles, the leaders of the community and great grace was upon them all.  Grace, unmerited favor.  Lutheran’s speak of grace often; it is the foundation our our faith.  We are saved by grace.  Luke tells us that as the early church came together they came under great grace; grace to carry out the mission.  Grace is a unifier.  If we understand that we have been saved by grace than we should, must, respond in grace to those around us.  Certainly with our fellow brothers and sisiters but also with those outside of the church.

The idea that freely we have received so freely we should give is seen clearly in this text in Acts 4:32ff.  Understanding what Christ had done for them they reach out to one another in love.  Understanding the pressure each one was under because of their faith they banded together as one people.

Too often the church is divided by race, class, ecconomics, location and who knows whatelse.  The reason these things are so important to us is because we have lost track of the mission.  We do not see the spreading of the kingdom as the think that unites us.  We do not see the world as the enemy of Christ.  Each congregation closes in on itself and seeks to build and independant congregation or moves into a survival mode.  The Gospel reading last Sunday was the Great Commission.  Jesus gave the church only one task from which all else springs; “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Let us go forth together, united in mission, to fulfill the Lord’s command.

Much has transpired in the text between this passage and the one we looked at earlier.  Peter and John healed the lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.  The man sat begging and when the two disciples approached him he ask them for some spare change.  A familiar city encounter.  Peter tells him he has no money, but in the name of Jesus he should stand up and walk which is exactly what he did.  This is one of the signs and wonders that were done through the apostles that were mentioned in our last text.

This glorious event was met with opposition by the leaders of the Jews and Peter and John were dragged before the Sanhedrin.  The two men were brought before the high priest and the elders of the people to be tried and silenced.  Peter filled with the Holy Spirit spoke up with boldness.  After some time it was recognized that these man had been with Jesus.  The question was what to do with these men.  A miracle had taken place which could not be denied.  The best they could expect was that if threatened they would keep silent.  Peter throws it back at them by declaring, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

Peter tooka bold stand against the status quo.  Later the gathered church would pray for boldness to stand up against the world.  In organizing it is always good to recognize the common enemy.  The old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,”  has some truth to it when applied to church life.  The real enemy is not other Christians.  We will not agree on every point of doctrine nor will we always look at things through the same lenses, but other Christians are not our enemy.  The clearer we identify who really opposes the work of God the easier it well be to work with other brothers and sisters in Christ.  Our internal disagreements will be seen as in house arguments between family members.

After all that took place around the arrest of Peter and John because of the healing, and the follow up prayer meeting Luke than turns to give us a look at the church as it lived it faith in the hostile world. 

The persecution caused them to be single minded in their approach to the outside world.  Luke tells us they were of one heart and soul.  They were like minded.  Opposition has a way of uniting people of like minded faith.  When one member suffers we all suffer.  When Peter and John went to jail all of the believers in a sense went with them.  Each were equally vulnerable to arrest.  That reality caused them to come together.  It strengthened their relationship to one another.  The shared a common enemy and they drew strength for their shared faith.

Luke than goes on to say, “…no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”  A communal lifestyle that sprang not a forced imposition for the leaders of the community, nor an ideal that everyone felt compelled to live up to, but rather their hearts were moved with compassion for the people who they were in relationship with.

As we enter into relationships with each other and beging to bear on anothers burden, thus fulfilling the law of Christ we will be inclined to share our resources as well.  The more I think about the church the greater is see the need for us to come together as brothers and sisters in Christ who share the same goal, and engage the same enemy, as we seek to draw people into the body of Christ ans spread the kingdom of God.

As I said I have been spending some time reading books on urban ministry.  The thing that keeps striking me as I read is the way urban ministry is defined and the focus that each author took as an approach to ministry in the city.  Urban ministry is most often defined as ministry to poor and ethnic minorities.  This was certainly my experience in Queens.  The focus becomes that of coming along side of the community and helping to lift the people you are ministering too.  There is a call to understand the community you are trying to reach,  but the community is seen as alienated for the main stream of society.

The church I now pastor is not a poor minority ethnic church, but it is by every definition of the word and inner city church.  The neighborhood is very diverse and in need of the declaration of the gospel of grace.  The thing I am wrestling with is what is the role of the church that is not in economic crisis and how does it relate to the community around it?

Too often the language of the church is as divisive as the language used by those outside of the church.  The rich poor dichotomy, the ethnic verses non-ethnic categories, the need verses non-need language seems to divide the church rather than pull it together.  The poor are continually seen as victims and needy and the well off are seen as those who through guilt and manipulation are to be brought to the aid of the rest.  Some how for me this comes up short.

Having spent most of my ministry in a poor neighborhood and having run a ministry house that was an extension of my own family I both understand and sympathize with those who are living near or under the poverty line.  But as a pastor of a group of people that have resources at their disposal and who are willing to open their hands generously to those in need I believe that we need to rethink how we discuss the problems that face our society and the church.

Ministry is all about relationships.  When we use language that divides we separate people into categories that do not lead to the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17.  If Jesus’ intention for the church is that we are to be one as he and the Father are one than we need to be working toward that unity.  There are a number of vignettes in the book of Acts that give us insight into the life of the early church.  If we will spend a little time with them I believe they will inform our own values and fellowship.

The first is found in Acts 2:42-47.  It is the first description of the newly formed church following the events of Pentecost.  We are told they, the entire church, devoted themselves to the apsotles’ teaching, to fellowship, the breaking of bread, and to prayer.  These are all corporate events.  They are the events the unity people around the Lordship of Christ.  They gathered for worship, the teaching of the apostles and the breaking of bread, for fellowship, the coming together for mutual support, and corporate prayer; worship, fellowship and prayer.  They did not divide themselves into groups but all came together united around Jesus putting their differences aside.

What would it mean if each church found common ground around the savior and sought to come together around the things that unify?  Certainly it would be unreasonable to ask people to give up their traditions and their distinctiveness but in the urban context we must learn to work together as the body of Christ against our common enemies; the world and those that set themselves against God.

The city is too big for each church to take it on by itself.  A united front allows the diversity of the body of Christ to express itself.  Each church bringing its gifts to bear on the issues that effect us all.  When each church feels they are a contributing member to the issues at hand there are no victims and saviors, only co-laborers in the body of Christ.

The result of the unity of the believers in this passage is seen in too things that took place.  The first was the movement of God.  Awe came upon all as many signs and wonders were being done by the apostles.  Jesus said that we would do greater things than he did because he ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to indwell in the church.  The power of God is present in the church and as we carry out the mission of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit the world will stop and take notice.

As I look around at Church for All Nations I am taken back by all that God is doing in our midst.  The most striking thing is that he has built a community of believers around word and sacrament that has sprung forth in a deep fellowship of people many of whom would have nothing to do with one another but for the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.  Doesn’t this sound like the scene painted for us in Acts 2?

The second thing that we see in this passage that springs from the work of the Holy Spirit on this group of believers is that they had all things in common.  This is not Marxism but rather the family of God acting in a loving manner toward one another.  This was not government inforced equality, but people moved by compassion because they are in relationship with one another.  It is easy to turn one’s back on the stranger, but its another thing to turn your back on someone you share a relationship with.  The early church became so caught up in the Christ event that those who had more than they needed began to sell off their positions and bring the money and lay it at the apostles feet.  Love in action.

So for me I believe that those of us in urban ministry, no all ministry, must seek to bridge the gaps that divide us.  If we can only come together and build relationships, community, with those around us who do not share our lifestyle but share our savior we will begin to move in the right direction.  The church did not come up with a program to deal with relief but they were caught up by the move of the Holy Spirit and could not help but reach out to those in need.

In the days and weeks ahead I want to look at the other passages in Acts that call us to relationship with God and one another.  The church is the one institution that is called out of the world to live the values of the kingdom of God, through the power of God.

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