- Sing Sing Sing
- All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises
- Enough
- Blessed Be the Name of the Lord
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IMITATE: Ephesians 5:1
What Does Your Church Value? (Part Two)
This week we are considering the values expressed by the early church. These basic values drove the life and ministry of that church family, and were captured by Luke in Acts 2:42. Notice:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
Yesterday we saw the first value—the apostles’ doctrine, or teaching. We continue there with…
2) Fellowship. Here is this great word koinonia, “to have in common.” At first, they had spiritual blessings in common: one faith, one body, one Lord, one God, one baptism. And then they had all things in common. They even sold real estate and brought the proceeds to be shared with those who were needy.
3) The Breaking of Bread. From the beginning, two church ordinances were practiced: baptism and communion. These practices continue to our present day. Since there were no church buildings, the Lord’s Table was observed in their homes.
4) Prayer (Acts 3:1). They prayed for each other. As I go from church to church in my ministry, pastors often want to talk about the declining attendance at their church’s prayer meetings. What can we do to revive interest in prayer among our church family? It’s a key question since it was a major component of the dynamic early church.
Those are terrific values, and obviously important. But to merely embrace values without living them out is unfortunate, indeed. Tomorrow we will see the practical ways the early church exhibited these important values.
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