A primary aspect of the first church is nearly missing in the church today …

I never tire of reading about the first church as portrayed in the book of Acts in the Bible. I find chapters two and four especially compelling.

Who wouldn’t want to be part of such a phenomenal church?

Why isn’t the church today strikingly similar to the first church?

The answer to that isn’t so simple, but one important part of the answer is a primary aspect of the first church is nearly missing in the church today. Take a look at this scripture and see if you can identify the almost missing component:

“All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer,” Acts 2:42.

One could argue that most of these elements are suffering in today’s church … teaching has been dumbed down and often turned into motivational seminars; we only occasionally share meals together; many churches greatly limit how often they observe the Lord’s Supper; and while some churches still have prayer services, it’s hard to get anyone to show up to pray.

But what is especially missing in today’s church is a devotion to fellowship. For those first Christians, it was important to spend time together, it was something they were devoted to! Fellowship as portrayed in the New Testament basically means sharing and self-sacrifice with other believers, as New Testament scholar J. R. McRay noted in Christianity Today, “Fellowship in the early church was not based on uniformity of thought and practice, except where limits of immorality or rejection of the confession of Christ were involved.”

Fellowship in the early church meant a devotion to one other, like the example of the devotion one pastor had for his flock, as described in Today in the Word:

In 1773, the young pastor of a poor church in Wainsgate, England, was called to a large and influential church in London. John Fawcett was a powerful preacher and writer, and these skills had brought him this opportunity. But as the wagons were being loaded with the Fawcetts’ few belongings, their people came for a tearful farewell.

During the good-byes, Mary Fawcett cried, “John, I cannot bear to leave!” “Nor can I,” he replied. “We shall remain here with our people.” The wagons were unloaded, and John Fawcett spent his entire fifty-four-year ministry in Wainsgate.

Out of that experience, Fawcett wrote the beautiful hymn, “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”

Such “binding ties” are hard to find anymore; the church in the twenty-first century looks nearly as strife-ridden and divided as the culture around us. A better description of the modern church would be more like this poem, penned by that infamous writer, Source Unknown:

Believe as I believe — no more, no less;
That I am right (and no one else) confess.

Feel as I feel, think only as I think;
Eat what I eat, and drink but what I drink.

Look as I look, do always as I do;
And then — and only then — I’ll fellowship with you.

Perhaps that doesn’t describe your church; if not, you likely know some it does.

We’ve largely lost our devotion to fellowship.

You may be old enough to remember a time when most churches had a “fellowship hall,” a building on their campus specifically devoted for the fellowship of the church gathered. Fellowship halls have increasingly gone by the wayside with many churches, with an argument that “we want to get church members into each other’s homes.” That’s a good thing, although we’re also not very good at that, either. And getting into each other’s homes isn’t a replacement for the fellowship of the gathered church; both are important, it’s not an either/or but a both/and. Today, most of the time spent as the church gathered is on Sunday mornings, a gathering for which we’ve increasingly made important to make sure we limit to a service of no longer than one hour or perhaps 15 minutes more. The “fellowship” time are the moments entering and exiting a sanctuary.

That’s not exactly what you would call “devoted to fellowship.”

If we don’t find it important to be together, then we will …

• • … not find it important to serve one another …
  • … not find it important to care about one another …
  • … not find it important to sacrifice for one another …
  • … not find it important to bear each other’s burdens …
  • … and not even find it important to love one another …

… beyond what we would be willing to do for a casual acquaintance. After all, if we’re not bound together in fellowship, we’re little more than Sunday morning acquaintances to each other, aren’t we?

But we need each other.

“Source Unknown” again offers some insight into that need:

Mamie made frequent trips to the branch post office. One day she confronted a long line of people who were waiting for service from the postal clerks. Mamie only needed stamps, so a helpful observer asked, “Why don’t you use the stamp machine? You can get all the stamps you need and you won’t have to stand in line.” Mamie said, “I know, but the machine can’t ask me about my arthritis.” People still need human contact.

We need more than human contact, we can get that as we pass in the hallways on Sunday morning. We need the strong bonds of fellowship! This fellowship was something Jesus prayed for and described like this:

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one — as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me,” John 17:20-21.

That was the kind of devotion to fellowship the first Christians had, but that is not descriptive of most local churches today.

If that does not describe your church … if your church is lacking a sincere and substantial devotion to fellowship … what can you do, and what are you willing to do, to change that? How could developing strong bonds of fellowship in your church impact the lives of the members, as well as the people in your community, and the greater kingdom of God?

Scotty