Today my eyes fell to 2:42–47 and the creation of The First Church of Jerusalem.
From a prayer meeting of 120, and with the incredible empowering of the Holy Spirit, Peter preaches the sermon of all sermons and 3000 households turned to Christianity.
But here’s the dilemma. The mission of the church is to make disciples, to help unbelievers say “Yes!” to Jesus. And there’s a difference between making “converts” and making “disciples.” It takes more than just showing up once a week for a worship service to become a disciple. So, the apostles were stuck trying to turn unbelievers into fully effective disciples of Jesus.
Q: How in the world do you disciple 3000+ when there are only 120 faithful church members?
A: Everyone in the church steps up to do their part.
BUT their part wasn’t about “running the church.” It was about Being the Church. Their stepping up was the adoption of the new believers and helping them into the faith. The 120 didn’t build programs or write curriculum; instead, they started meeting together with their new friends in homes and in public places to (1) eat together – fellowship and sharing their lives; (2) to attend to the apostles’ teaching – discussing and applying the apostle’s “sermons” and so on; and (3) to grow in favor of those outside the fellowship so that the Lord had the opportunity to “add to their numbers.”
The part that intrigued me the most in this passage was the realization that Jesus doesn’t send the Spirit to do our job for us. It’s our job to build relationships with those outside the faith … to build “favor of all the people” … so that the Lord can add to the church those who are coming into the faith.
So, there are two parts (for me) in today’s reading. First, there’s the disciple-making part. There were 3000 new converts desperately needing to be discipled. That meant there were 25 for each church member to adopt, to befriend, and to train. Can you say “Small Groups” that weren’t being led by the pastoral staff?
Then second, there’s the building favor with the unchurched. One of the fruits of faithful discipleship is building bridges into the community. Your house is a mission outpost and you are the missionary posted there to reach your personal mission field (your neighborhood). We’re called to BE disciples who are learning better how to be a faithful follower of Jesus. But simultaneously, we’re called to be missionaries who are building favor with those in our neighborhoods so that we can be a witness.
Two questions, then. (1) Who are you discipling? And (2) How will you be building favor with the unbelievers in your personal mission field this week?
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