The Forgotten Sign of a Healthy Church
Last week I came across this tweet and loved it.
This reminded me of something we can easily forget.
The early church was not a large institution.
Politicians weren’t interested in courting Christian votes. There were no vacation bible schools or Wednesday night potlucks.
Christianity was a fringe movement that started on the outskirts of the Roman empire. It was founded on the ridiculous notion that a Jewish man named Jesus wasn’t simply a teacher—he was God!
It grew followers not by simply signing a form or agreeing with the tenets of the faith.
It grew with women and men becoming sisters and brothers. Not gathering on Sundays and then going about their weeks but entering into one another’s homes. Living life intimately with each other.
Going “house to house.”
The place of community
And this is a forgotten sign of a healthy church.
Genuine Christian community happens in between Sunday mornings. It’s found around dinner tables and in living rooms. It’s in the intimate spaces of homes.
It’s not about listening to the same sermons but living in the same space.
In our homes, strangers become brothers and sisters. Believers weep, grow, repent, forgive, and love together. It’s in the ordinary, domestic moments that Jesus reveals himself in deeper ways.
The place of revelation
After all, it was around a dinner table in someone’s home where the risen Christ revealed himself to two of his followers.
After walking with them on the road to Emmaus, these two followers “urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over” (Luke 24:29).
Jesus entered their home and sat at their dinner table. He then “took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” (Luke 24:30-31).
Walking into town, sitting for a meal. This is where Christ revealed himself. This is where he continues to reveal himself.
Not merely in the Sunday pulpit.
But around the Monday night table too.
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