When you look at the early church in the book of acts and when the apostles and believers gathered together, there was always something happening, people wanted to be together because there was such a connection between each other regardless of what social standing, what background you came from, whether you were young or old, rich or poor.
Every need was catered for. If you didn’t have enough, the believers that were well off, sold houses and lands to look after their brethren, they were connected with each other.
We use the word fellowship these days in church, but when you look at the fellowship the early church had, it’s far inferior these days to what it was then, we think because we meet in the same building, that’s fellowship, no it’s not! That’s why most of the church is weak and enemic and it doesn’t give us any desire to want to turn up and serve the church.
There’s a nice website with the mission statement, and we’re all on social media trying to get our name and profile out there, but when we turn up, it’s just the same old thing, cups of tea and cake, and shallow conversations, and you leave thinking, i could have had a better time down the pub, or a restaurant, which is why people go there these days instead of the local church.
I find church the majority of the time is too safe and predictable, sometimes you don’t even need to turn up in person, because you can be at home or wherever, look at the time and know they’ll be at this point in the service, or the preacher is about to start around now, and i think a lot of people have left church disappointed simply because the power of God is not seen of felt anymore, the word doesn’t do anything on the inside and you leave sometimes feeling worse than you did when you arrived.
But we keep turning up on a Sunday or whenever your day of worship is, and keep on pretending that’s nothing’s wrong but when you compare to the experience in the book of acts what the church had then, it does get you asking questions and wondering why things are so different today.