Saint John Community Church

Pastor Tom Grieb begins our series "Core Values.'

Core Values are those fundamental beliefs a person or an organization has.  They are guiding principles that dictate behavior and help determine if a person or an organization is on the right path.  As we move forward, we will need to be well-grounded in who God is calling us to be.

As a matter of Core Value, we claim to be Christ-centered and have a deep desire to follow Christ’s leadership and do as he did.  Having arrived at Saint John last June I quickly noticed a deep love for Christ among those who make up this church.  Your desire is to be centered in Christ and to follow his lead.  We’ll be talking about Jesus and what it means to be centered in him.  Hopefully, we will affirm what we already know to be true that we are a people centered on Christ seeking to follow his lead and do as he did.

We have said most recently that a great blueprint for how to do church is contained in the description of the Early New Testament as recorded in Act 2:42-47.  That church was characterized by a devotion to right teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread as lived out around the Lord’s Table, and to prayer.  These things became the pillars upon which the church was built.  These things made up the DNA, if you will, of the early church.

Underlying those things was a rhythm that was lived out regularly by those who were a part of that Early New Testament church.  They lived out their faith in groups that were both large and small.  Acts 2:46 states that “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”  They did life together along a continuum that included both the temple and home, the organized and organic, the gathered and scattered, and the structured and organic.

We continue this week considering the way the Early New Testament Church went about its business.  As we talked last week about fellowship and the breaking of bread, particularly around the Lord’s Table, we saw that both were fundamental to what the church was about.  Also fundamental to the church were the apostles’ teaching and prayer.

Right teaching was a hallmark of the early church and the apostles led the way.  Today such teaching is done against the backdrop of Holy Scripture.  God’s Word has a way of speaking into our lives offering comfort, strength, and direction.  All teaching should be well-seasoned with scripture.  In fact, all that’s taught should have scripture as its base.

Not only was right teaching a hallmark of the early church, but so was prayer.  Those who were a part of the early church prayed as if the very mission depended upon their prayers.  Their mission was so broad that it would be accomplished only by God’s leadership.  Their prayers kept them in touch with that leadership.  The same is true for us.  We will only be as vital as our prayer life.

We are continually facing how best to do the Lord’s work individually and corporately.  When it comes to the church there are all sorts of books, podcasts, and e-mails that attempt to weigh.  Sometimes it seems like we are always chasing the next big thing.  When it comes to how best to do the Lord’s work through the church there is no better place to go than the Bible, and in that regard the great description of the Early New Testament Church in Acts 2 :42 and following.  For the next couple of weeks, we will be acquainting ourselves with that model for the church and seek to apply it to what we’re about at St John.  Pointedly this week, we will be look closely at the sort of fellowship the early church enjoyed and what went on when they broke bread together, particularly when they came together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.