Be The Church

Acts 2:47b

. . . And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

The main emphasis in most churches seems to be to get the people to come to church. Many hours are spent across our land in staff meetings with pastors and their support personnel trying to come up with new ways to get the members of the congregation to be faithful each Sunday and Wednesday in their attendance to the services of their home church. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in church attendance just as much as the next guy. I believe that when the body of Christ meets together, all members should do their very best to be there, to be on time and to be ready to worship and get a message from God. The Bible even says that we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

Well, then it would seem that this emphasis is the right thing then. Not necessarily, getting people to attend for the sake of attendance is not the main function of the church. This idea seems to teach that the primary function of a Christian is to be a church goer, and once that requirement is met, the rest of the time is “free time”. The Bible emphasis is on living the Christian life 24/7, it is a full time lifestyle, not something to be done for a few hours a week in a stained glass cathedral. Instead of emphasizing going to church, we need to emphasize being the church. It is not where we go that will be a witness for Christ, it is how we live. Going to church is to prepare us and train us for being the church.

The reason for the phenomenal growth of the early church was that the believers were taking it to the streets, living the life and telling the message. They were sold out, committed and taking the message with power. Signs and wonders were common then as they should be today. It is time we stopped thinking of Christian living as going to church and started being the church.