The 4 purposes of church - Conclusion

Worship, Education, Outreach, Fellowship

We have officially concluded the purposes of church thread I have been on for some time. For all those who have found themselves reading this I hope you have expanded your knowledge of what all these things really are. I say this because far too many of us we treat religion like sports. We offer our devotion to a team according to geography or whoever happens to be on top when we discover it. Even as recently as the fifties, Christianity was so common it was ubiquitous in America. It was easy back then, but now that it is less easy many are not showing true devotion by stepping up when we need them. It is no wonder that generation has failed to inspire subsequent generations. It is no wonder many church people really don’t understand why the church really exists, and why we don’t live out the purposes of church in a truly scriptural way. We base what we know more off of what we observe people doing, and we are observing people who learned from mere observation themselves rather than educate themselves. There in lies the problem of having been a too common of belief system. People start to equate it with “normal”  where in reality, Christianity teaches us to defy our normal sinful, selfish, and self-destructive tendencies. This has only led to a very weak, uninformed, and powerless church that plays it safe rather than live by faith. This is precisely why I started this blog, to combat the misconceptions that arise from of passivity in spirituality. I will continue to do what I can in order to carry on this mission.

No Comparison 

Purpose of church 4 - Fellowship part 2

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. -Acts 2:42

This verse offers a glimpse of what that first generation church was like. Four simple things the first believers devoted themselves to. What I want to draw your attention to first is the third thing mentioned, the breaking of bread. You may think that this is a communion reference, but that is not strictly true. Granted it ties into the last supper as the communion does, but what you may not realize is that such practices did not begin with Jesus. This was a common practice that the Hebrews of the time routinely practiced at fellowship meals. Jesus just ensured that the practice was carried on by the church. So as you can see, the practice of the day was inherently tied to the second thing mentioned in the verse. So half of what the that first generation church was dedicated to was fellowship. The very thing many in the current church want to deem irrelevant. One of the ways we have done this is by ritualization of communion to the point that there is no fellowship in it at all. Yet, we wonder why the church can’t seem to get along with itself. If we can’t work together than we can’t commit to the ultimate mission of God’s kingdom. So how by any stretch of the imagination can we call fellowship irrelevant?

Let us break bread together