Why the Church needs to be a family
When someone in a typical American small group shares that they’ve lost their job, a common response would be: “I’m sorry, man. I’ll be praying for you. Let me know if you need anything.”
But in the early church, they would have responded: “I just got a raise, brother. I don’t need the extra money. I’ll give it to you every month. I also don’t need my car, I can bike to work. I’ll sell it and send the cash your way. And if you need a place to stay, I’ll have our kids sleep in our room.”
The defining marker of the early church was love and care for each other. A secular Roman scholar spoke of the people of “the way,” noting, “Look how they care for each other. They have everything in common except a common bed.”
Does the secular world see the church as it did back then? At least not in America.
The early church grew so exponentially that within 200 years, it had become the dominant religion in Rome, and Constantine had no choice but to declare it the state religion. But there wasn’t a seeker service. There weren’t programs to invite your neighbor to.
So, what were the components of the early church that made them so potent in the Roman Empire?
They shared everything with each other. If someone was in need, they were covered. If they had no place to live, they could count on their brothers or sisters in Christ.
Their loyalty was to each other. In today’s church, individuals move from city to city, church to church, whenever life “moves them.” But in the early church, those who were in your church, you quite literally, “did life with them.”
They brought in the dispossessed. They took in the widow, orphan, sick and disabled. They clothed them, fed them, gave them a place to live.
What would it look like for your church members to embrace a true family mindset in their church? How would that impact their lives and the life of your church?
*inspired by When the Church was a Family by Joseph Hellerman
