Last week I listened to a sermon that was prompted by the pastor’s being regularly asked, ‘So, how’s your church doing?’ That is a good question, and it is one that deserves more than a glib, off-the-cuff answer.
If someone was to ask you, ‘How’s your church doing?’ what are the things that you would weigh in as you considered your answer?
The stereotypical criteria are what are called the three B’s: bodies and buildings and bucks, or the ABC’s: attendance and buildings and cash.
That is, most people would say that things are going well at church if there is healthy (preferably growing) Sunday morning attendance, if there is a great facility and if there is a building program to expand or improve space, and if the budget is in good shape and giving is strong (maybe even a surplus).
Conversely, we say things aren’t going well if there is no growth in attendance or – worse! – shrinking attendance, or if we don’t have a very ‘nice’ facility, or if the budget is in trouble and we find we have to keep reminding people to give.
Now, certainly attendance trends and budget considerations are signals that should be paid attention, too, no question. But put baldly in those terms, we think, ‘Of course those things are not the criteria for determining whether a church is healthy or not.’ Yet it’s hard not to let those things determine for us ‘how our church is doing’.
Let’s think in different terms this morning.
We are walking through the book of Acts on our Sunday mornings these days. Again, Acts is about the increase or progress of the Word of God and the simultaneous growth as the church that inevitably accompanies it. Jesus told his disciples that, empowered by the Holy Spirit, they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (1:8). Acts is the account of that ‘witnessing’: the early chapters in Jerusalem, chapters 8-12 in the surrounding region and Samaria, and from chapter 13 on in the Mediterranean world ending in Rome.
The events recorded in Acts is this interplay between three agents: The Holy Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the Christians themselves. That is, the Christians preached the Word of God concerning Jesus, and lived lives empowered by the Spirit, and it changed then world forever. We are here today because of what we read in Acts.
After Peter preached, three thousand people repented of their sins were baptized and became part of the faith community of Jesus.
Now imagine, a church that grows from 120 to 3000 in a day!
Later, because of the events about to follow in chapter 3, the number grows to about 5,000.
So we ask the question, ‘How was that church doing?’
We have two descriptions of the life of this fledgling church, both fairly short and both very similar to each other. They are Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32-35. This was an alive community, growing, impacting, deep, and united. We can learn something about the vital signs of such a church by looking at them.
What I want to do today is walk through a bit of a checklist of what we see here. This is our health check-up, our physical. There are ten vital signs of a healthy church. As we look at the Acts church, let’s look for what we can affirm about our church and our own lives, and also consider what it is we need to be praying about, what things God might want to bring us back to.
You may want to pray through these over the next while, praying for our church. So here we go: Ten things present in the church of Acts, vital signs of a healthy church today:
1. Testimony to the Resurrection of Jesus
This comes from the description in chapter 4:33 – With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This has been a theme already in Acts: we read in the very first verses of chapter 1 that Jesus presented himself to them alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days (1:3). The apostles needed to be certain that the crucified Jesus was alive, because this would be their central declaration as his witnesses. The apostle Mathias was chosen in chapter 1 so that he might become, in Peter’s words, a witness with us to his resurrection (1:22). Peter’s first sermon, as we’ve just seen, hinged upon the declaration that the 120 were witnesses to the fact that God raised Jesus up from death. And as we saw last week, when they spoke, they always spoke of Jesus’ resurrection: in chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 13, and 17.
It is the living Jesus the church always testifies to and points to. We are not a self-help organization. We are not an entertainment venue. Nor do we primarily provide instruction for moral development. If we are here (if you are here) to add the religious facet to your life, or to get grounded in morality or what it means to be good, or because you think church involvement helps to tip God’s scales in your favor, we miss it completely. We are here to know and make known the living Jesus, the forgiving, reigning Son of God. We are the people of the risen Son of God. Jesus is the source, the content, and the goal of all we preach, all we do, and all we are. The day we move Jesus himself off the center, we cease being the church. We exist to know Christ and make him known.
So the first and most important vital sign of a healthy church is this: do we testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus? That is, by our proclamation, our ministry, and our very lives, do we declare to the world a living Jesus? We don’t simply adhere to the teachings of a long-dead spiritual leader, but we are followers and worshippers of a living Lord. And we declare him.
2. Devotion to Scripture
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (2:42).
What was the apostles’ teaching? It was their testimony concerning Jesus. They taught the Old Testament, for Jesus had said to them earlier, everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). The Old Testament is about Jesus. And it was in the context of the Old Testament that they understood and interpreted the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The understanding of Jesus, and the implications of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection they then wrote down. That is our New Testament. So the Apostles’ teaching is the Scripture, the Bible, the living, active, inspired, sacred and authoritative Word of God, and the followers of Jesus were devoted to it.
That means they listened to the teaching. They learned. They ordered their lives under it.
The word ‘devoted’ is a different word than ‘committed’. ‘Committed’ is only an outward word. ‘Devoted’ is a heart word, an attitude word that then leads to action. Both the committed person and the devoted person might do the same actions. But ‘committed’ says ‘I have to, so I will’. ‘Devoted’ says ‘I get to’. ‘Committed’ says ‘I should.’ ‘Devoted’ says ‘I want’. ‘Committed’ says, ‘I’d better roll up my sleeves and be a good Christian by reading my Bible’. ‘Devoted’ says, ‘There is life here! What a privilege that God has spoken and still speaks by his Word! This feeds my soul, teaches me truth, helps me to live well.’
I want to ask about our devotion to the apostles teaching, to the Scripture. As I ask that, some of you will hear me asking about our ‘commitment’ to the Scripture. That’s not what I’m asking, though sometimes the way to fostering devotion is to start with commitment.
But someone might read the Bible every day and not be devoted to it. You can be committed to the act of reading, as if the act itself has some spiritual merit, and yet not be devoted to the Scripture itself. Do we love the Scripture? Do we let it shape our character, values and action? Does it have a place of honor in our lives, or a place of obligation? The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep the faucet on.
One of the signs that a church is healthy is that there is devotion to the Scripture. Conversely, no church is healthy where the Scripture is not loved, taught, and lived.
3. Devotion to Fellowship
They were devoted also to ‘fellowship’.
‘Fellowship’ translates the Greek word koinonia, which is a much richer word than our English word ‘fellowship’. Koinonia is not just a social word. ‘Fellowship’ here is not potlucks, games nights or even hospitality (though I will get to that in a moment).
This word koinonia has more of the idea of partnership, of ‘we’re-in-this-together’. It is being bonded together because of a common central value. This fellowship is the kind experienced by soldiers serving in the trenches together, risking their lives for each other. It is not ‘having a nice time together’, it is loving one another because we belong to one another.
The first church was devoted to this fellowship.
Again, notice the difference between devotion and commitment, here. ‘Commitment’ says, ‘There’s a function at the church, I ought to support it, so I’ll go.’ ‘Devoted’ says ‘This is my family. I love these people.’ ‘Committed’ says ‘It’s a sacrifice, but I should give some money or some time to this need.’ ‘Devoted’ says, ‘Their sickness, their need pains me. I’ll do whatever I can to help and consider it a joy, not a sacrifice!’
It is this idea that Paul had in mind when he described the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 and said, If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor 12:26).
One of the vital signs of a healthy church is devotion to one another, a devotion that expresses itself in various ways, one of which was in conjunction with the next vital sign….
4. Devotion to the ‘breaking of bread’
The regular breaking of bread: That means basically that they ate together regularly. They were hospitable to one another and shared meals together. This is part of the expression of their devotion to the fellowship. Hospitality – a lost art in our culture – was normal for them.
But again, it was not a purely social hospitality. It was the hospitality of worship. Right from the earliest days of the church, whenever they ate together, they would include as a part of the meal the memorial of the Last Supper: they would ‘break bread’ and drink of the cup. With the bread they would remember the crucifixion and suffering of the body of Jesus, which was beaten, whipped, and nailed to the cross to bear the punishment for sin, the punishment that was rightly ours. Drinking the wine they would remember the Old Testament imagery of the blood of the sacrifices for sin, and Exodus 24, when they people were bound to God in a covenant relationship.
Before his arrest and death Jesus had told them to eat the bread and drink the cup in his remembrance. This way they would keep the death of Christ central. And so they did. In so doing they affirmed together that it was Christ that bound them together.
5. Devotion to the Prayers
Most of our Bibles probably say ‘to prayer’, but it is plural: ‘to the prayers’. It’s a distinction worth noting. See, in the practice of Judaism there were set times for prayer. The followers of Jesus thought of themselves as good Jews: they rightly saw Jesus as the completion and fulfillment of their Judaism. So as Christians they did not abandon their faith heritage. They continued to attend ‘the prayers’. The very next chapter in Acts, chapter 3, has Peter and John going to the temple at ‘the time of prayer’, 3:00 in the afternoon.
Here’s the point: notice that among the things the first Christians devoted themselves to were the observances of their religion: the breaking of bread, regular attendance at the temple, and the prayers.
It is interesting that we often think that we don’t need to devote ourselves to the external observances. That it is too rigid, too formal, that our faith should just be the expression of the passion of the heart.
Yet we’re devoted to external observances in almost every other facet of life: we get up and go to bed at the same time every day. We eat at the same times. We brush our teeth, shave and shower. These things just keep us on track in health and hygiene and work and family life.
Why do we think this does not apply spiritually? We often forsake the observances based on whether we ‘feel like it’ or not. So we don’t read our Bibles and pray. We stay home on Sunday mornings because ‘it’s my morning to sleep in’ (or whatever).
We wonder at our lack of spiritual vitality. We make the mistake of thinking vitality and passion come first, and then we can give ourselves to prayer and Scripture and worship. When, in reality, it is almost always the opposite: that spiritual vitality and passion are cultivated when we prioritize the observances. As we give ourselves to prayer and Scripture and worship, spiritual life is watered and grows.
The disciplines are what carry us through the spiritually dry times. If right now, you feel like God is far away and you don’t know him, lean into the observances, the disciplines, not away from them. A regimen of prayer is an essential part of a healthy experience of God and of prayer. When you don’t ‘feel‘ like praying, continue to devote yourself to ‘the prayers’: your regular time of prayer, our corporate times of prayer.
6. Evidence of the Power of God
Many signs and wonders were being done by the apostles.
Where the gospel was preached there were ‘signs and wonders’, ‘signs’ meaning that they were miracles that pointed to (which is what signs do) to the validity and truth of what was being proclaimed. These miracles were God’s way of saying, ‘There is power in what these apostles are doing, so consider that there is power in what they are saying.’
This link between the apostles’ preaching about Jesus and the presence of signs and wonders was understood by them when they prayed in chapter 4: Grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus (4:29-30).
We know what some of these ‘signs and wonders’ were: In chapter 3, a man lame from birth is healed. In chapter 5 the sick are healed, and demon-possessed are freed. In chapter 9 a dead woman is raised. You see this kind of thing in Acts a lot, right up to the end of the book.
Now, there is a school of thought in churches today that says miracles like this were done by the apostles, who are not around anymore, and so we shouldn’t expect to see this kind of thing. I’m not convinced. I think God would love to heal and do miracles in order to let the watching world know that the gospel of Jesus is powerful and true. We just need to walk closely enough with God to know when he is saying, ‘I want to heal this person. Speak it.’
But even apart from those particular kinds of miracles, where the church witnesses to Jesus, there will be evidence of the power of God: restored marriages, transformed lives, transformation from depression to joy, from anxiety to peace, you see integrity, how Christians face crisis: death or illness or job loss. a man was caught in the grip of addiction, this year he has freedom. Here’s a woman who as a young adult was starving herself because she weighed 100 lbs but thought she was fat; how she, too, is free and has a healthy relationship with food. Here is a man who was the sourest, most negative guy at work, and now everyone around him sees the change in his character. And so on.
In a culture starved for relationship and love, the church becomes a place where genuine, deep love is experienced. These are among the ‘signs and wonders’. These are the things that cause awe and are evidence of the power of God. These are the things that make people sit up and take notice and say, ‘Tell me more about this Jesus.’
In any healthy church, the community of Jesus, there will be evidences of God’s power, things that people can point to and say, ‘There is God.’
Basically, to check for this vital sign, simply look at a church – our church – and ask: Are people different, are lives different because of Jesus?
7. Generosity
They sold property in order to meet each others’ needs. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need (2:45)… There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need (4:34-35).
This, like hospitality, is an expression of their devotion to the fellowship, and devotion to one another.
This characterized the church: At the end of Acts 11 the Christians of Antioch pool their resources to care for the Christians suffering from famine in the area around Jerusalem. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8 Paul writes of the Macedonian Christians who insisted that they participate in giving for the care of other Christians even though they were themselves poverty-stricken.
But see, when a church is all about Jesus, and the people who make up the church are in awe that the God of heaven gave his life to save them, then no one thinks twice about giving a few hours, a few possessions, or a few dollars to meet the need of someone else. We don’t need to eat out as often or go to my weekly movie if it means you don’t have enough food or can’t make rent.
Most of us are astonishingly wealthy by global standards and even pretty well-off by North American standards. It isn’t hard materially to share with those among us who are in need. A healthy church doesn’t need to be arm-twisted into supporting one another. It is natural, a spontaneous sign of health.
I was so gratified on a number of occasions in the last year or so when you heard of a need and gave quickly and generously to it. It’s not surprising, but it’s gratifying, for it is a sign of health, health in your souls, and health in our church as a whole.
Can you imagine a family where the wife and mother is starving while the others in the house eat well? where the dad refuses to let his 10 year old son live in the house? Of course not! Well, the church is a family.
Healthy Christians, healthy churches are generous, they just give to care for each other.
8. Regular, corporate Worship
Day by day, attending the temple together (2:46). While they met in homes for hospitality and in that context broke bread and worshiped in their remembrance of Jesus, they also engaged in the formal practices of worship, as we’ve already seen specifically with reference to prayer.
We, too, have created a formal practice of worship. Each Sunday we come together in order to be together, to worship, to sit under the teaching of the Scriptures together. For so many years in the history of the Christian church, attendance at Sunday worship was a given. In the latter decades of the 20th Century, regular church attendance was defined as attending weekly. Now, when statisticians do research on church trends, regular church attendance is defined as attending twice a month, and attendance is going down. What that means is that in our churches in North America, we have fewer people attending less often.
Now, I know very well that church attendance is not in itself a healthy thing. All too often people can go to church every week and never deepen in character or know Jesus better. When it becomes about the church and not about Jesus, then regular church attendance probably actually causes harm. Never say, ‘Come for the sake of coming.’
But I dream of our being a place where we all come each week because we wouldn’t dream of missing it: we love each other that much, our encounters with Jesus together are so life-transforming that Sunday mornings are the highlight of our week. Wouldn’t it be great if our Sundays were such that you would cut your holidays short by a day just to be sure you were back in time to go to church on Sunday morning.
We don’t want slick services but we do want to seek and encounter Jesus every week. We do want Sundays where we know we’re loved by one another, where our character gets formed, our sins confessed and our forgiveness affirmed, our worship joyful and our hunger for God’s Word at once whetted and satisfied.
Hebrews 10:25 says Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. The early church met daily in the temple, their corporate worship such a necessary part of their public witness and their own growth. Why not make a greater point of being here Sundays, not from obligation, but from a joyful, willing choice to be with God and his people.
A sign of church health is when people attend because they want to attend.
9. Favour with the public
This one really intrigues me. Acts 2:47 explicitly says that they had ‘favor with all the people’ (2:47). What does this mean? Does it mean that everyone affirmed everything the church was and stood for? No. They underwent pretty aggressive persecution, and Acts 5:13 says that the other Jews didn’t dare join them, that they kept some distance. Yet even then, the public held them in high esteem.
The church today is not generally held in high esteem in our culture. We don’t enjoy everyone’s favor (and I’d suggest that this is, at least partly, our own fault).
The message that humanity is by nature sinful, under judgment and needs to be reconciled to God by Jesus will always carry offense. The church that not only believes in Jesus but also believes in the things Jesus believes in will by necessity engage wholeheartedly in those things: feeding the poor, fighting for justice, freeing the oppressed. Historically, where the church has gone, hospitals and schools have sprung up.
Christianity fights against the caste system in India, fights for the children enslaved by the sex trade in Thailand and – don’t let’s kid ourselves – our own country. The church cares for drug addicts, prostitutes, the homeless, the unemployed, the sick and imprisoned. Where the Word-centered, Spirit-filled church that is all about Jesus exists, communities are transformed, lives are changed, and that kind of thing makes the world say, ‘I may not ‘believe’ in Jesus, but I’m sure glad the church is here, doing what it’s doing!’
I ask sometimes, ‘Does our church enjoy favor with the people around us? Would this neighborhood care or notice if we shut down?’ It’s a question that makes me uncomfortable to ask.
Consider two churches right here in town: there is a church that meets downtown that blasts the drop in center with amplified Christian music and preaching from just off the property, despite requests from the drop in center not to do that. How much credibility do you think they have? What kind of impact are they having in the name of Jesus?
Or consider our sister church, who feeds and clothes kids in the school across the street, and who paint over graffiti in their neighborhood, and collect people’s junk for disposal. Do you think they have more of a voice for Jesus in their community? Yes, they do!
A vital sign of health for a church is: does it make a positive impact on its community? Does it enjoy favor?
10. Fruit
‘And the LORD added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ (2:47).
No matter what else a church is doing, if there is not fruit being borne, the church is not healthy. Their visible worship and fellowship and generosity, out of their devotion to Scripture and prayer and proclamation of the living Jesus, the power of God was at work, not just in the working of signs and wonders and the transformation of lives, but in the very salvation of people! The thing that mattered – matters! – more than any other one thing in the world, was being addressed: people were being forgiven of their sins and restored to relationship with God.
No church will ever being able to say with integrity and credibility that they – we – are healthy unless and until fruit is being borne: people who do not know Jesus are coming to know Jesus, people who are far from God are joyfully surrendering their lives to him, people are experiencing the grace of God.
Only then is a church healthy.
Yet, that is exactly what a church will see when it is devoted to Scripture and prayer, to one another, to worship and generosity, all under the proclamation of the resurrected Lord Jesus. There will be favor with the public, and some of those ‘public’ who say, ‘I need what they have. Tell me more about this Jesus.’
How is your church doing?
I am so grateful to God for what I have the privilege of seeing here:
– increasing love for Scripture…
– some expressions of generosity when there is a need…
– evidence of God at work in the lives of people
– fruit being borne
God is beginning to trust us with people again, and we long to see more of what he wants to do. We long to be a community where God is saving people, changing people, glorifying his son Jesus by making him known to us, and through us.
We’ve barely begun to see and to be what God has in store for a church, but by his grace we have begun, and it is a great thing to be a part of. We pray that the vital signs will only strengthen, that our health will only improve, as God continues to do his work here among us.
Amen.