I did a google search for why folks find church boring and I came across a forum in wikihow.com called, “How to Stay Entertained in Church.” The post begins with this statement, “Church is always boring, if you don’t think it is, then why are you reading this? This article is about how not to get bored to death while you’re there.” Here are the suggestions:
1. Try to actually listen. You might find out that sometimes it can actually be interesting.
2. Count. when every 10-minute period starts, count and then when you're done guessing when the period is over see how close you were. And if you really want a challenge then try to do the whole service.
3. If you're a girl, do your hair. Braid it, put it up, whatever. Just don't make a big show of it.
4. Sing or hum in your head. Think of your favorite song and sing the lyrics in your head.
5. Think. Just reflect on everything that's going on in your life. If you have a problem think about who to tell or how to solve it.
6. Bug your siblings, if they're not really little. Don't make a big scene of it. Just poke them or something.
7. Think about any problems in your life and how to solve them.
8. Text. Keep your phone silent or on vibrate. And make sure your parents are okay with it or do it really quietly. Sit far away from them.
9. If all else fails just go to the bathroom and hang there for a while. Make origami out of the paper towels or if no one's around, sing.
Tips
If there's a Sunday School during the service see if you can help out with it and kill about a half hour.
Try to sit as far away from your parents as possible.
Warnings
Don't go to the bathroom for too long or else your parents might get suspicious.
You might be missing out on important stuff.
Don't annoy really little siblings or else they might start crying really loud and/or you'll get in trouble with your parents.
Make sure your siblings won't tell on you.
This post exposes a truth that I think is important for us to deal with. A lot of folks, not just kids, find church boring. I believe that people find church boring if the church isn't what it's supposed to be. For the next three weeks we’re going to answer a question. The question is “What is Church?” I believe there is a misunderstanding or even a perception problem when it comes to defining the church. For the next three Sundays we are going to have a frank discussion on what Church is. We’re going to let the Bible define it. Hopefully when we’re done you will not only have a better understanding of what Church is, you’ll discover how exciting and awesome it is to be a part of it. You will discover that church is anything but boring.
This week we're going to discuss the answer to the question, “What is Church?” The church is a people group. If you read with me this week in Acts you read about a guy named Stephen. Stephen was a deacon in the church in Jerusalem. He had been appointed along with 6 other guys to run a food program to aid Greek widows. The church primarily in Jerusalem was made up of Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews. They still practiced their Jewish faith, they lived as they had always lived, but, now they were Jesus followers. But they had a flawed understanding about their new faith. These Jews expected gentiles who became followers of Jesus to become Jews, too. Gentiles who wanted to follow the Jewish Messiah had to become Jews by religion and practice. So many gentile Jesus followers who refused to do this, or for whatever reasons couldn’t become Jews by religion or practice were discriminated against. The Jewish widows were receiving the full benefit of the food program administered by the Jerusalem church, but the gentile widows were not. And once they started complaining about it, the twelve apostles who were still in Jerusalem overseeing the church appointed 7 deacons to make sure that the gentile widows were treated fairly with this food program. Stephen was one of these guys.
I want you to imagine as best you can what it must have been like for this people group of Jesus followers during the months following Jesus death, burial and resurrection. There was tension in the culture of Jews between those who followed the law of Moses, and those who followed the law of Moses but also believed in Jesus as the Son of God. The authorities of the law like the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Priests, and Teachers saw those who believed in Jesus as a threat to their power. The Sadducees didn’t believe in a resurrection so to believe that Jesus raised from the dead was a teaching heretical to their understanding. Pharisees like Saul considered Jesus followers as a cult and was determined to destroy it. Even today Jewish teachers and Rabbi’s are angry with the notion that Jesus is revealed as both human and God. Jewish writer Tom Macabi in this book “Anti-Semitism and John’s Gospel says “In the book of John in the New Testament, Christ is portrayed as a divine man who fulfills prophecy and reveals God in his own flesh. This was and still remains, pure anathema to Jews. From a Jewish perspective the Johannine god-man vision of Christ is a repulsive paganism. By virtue of their innate inability to accept such a vision of the Messiah, Jews are automatically condemned by Johannine Christology.”
This inability to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God was a problem especially for Jewish teachers then and it’s still a problem today. If the practice of Judaism isn’t good enough for God, then the teachers of the law of Moses, the Rabbi’s, the leaders of Judaism don’t have a job. They don’t have any power. That was unacceptable to them then and it still is today. Though there are many practicing Jews today who accept Jesus as the Messiah, they are called Messianic Jews, they are not accepted by the Jewish establishment as one of them.
So imagine being one of these folks in the early church in Jerusalem. On the one hand you were raised as a Jew and you still want to practice the religious rituals and practices you grew up with, but, there are those who now hold you in suspicion. Your co-workers, friends, neighbors, boss, and even some in your family question your faith, your loyalty and your devotion. The Rabbi you grew up with who taught you everything you know about your faith, until this Jesus guy showed up, won’t talk to you or allow you to enter his synagogue. You’ve heard that the authorities in town are starting to watch your every move and you’ve been warned many times not to talk about Jesus to anyone. And if you do, you’ll be severely punished, maybe beaten and imprisoned. You don’t know when or where or from whom the next threat will come, you just know it’s coming. Can you imagine living life like that? Does that sound boring? The life and experiences of the Jewish follower, especially in Jerusalem was full of danger, threats, and persecution.
Here's an example in Acts 5:40-42 of what I'm talking about and I want you to take notice of the attitude, the response to the persecution by the followers of Jesus. How would you respond if you were taken to court, found guilty of preaching Jesus, then beaten with whips and released. What would that do to your faith? How would you respond to this kind of treatment?
“They called in the apostles and had them flogged. Then they ordered them never again to speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go. The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”
The question I ask myself is, “Am I in this deep?” “Am I willing to sacrifice like this?” “Is my faith in Jesus driving my decisions or is my selfishness driving what I do?” For these followers, their faith in Jesus was a life changing, life threatening pursuit. They continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”
Like many of these Jesus followers Stephen wasn’t intimidated by persecution. He also considered the opportunity to suffer for the name of Jesus as an honor. Acts 6:8 says this about his character, “Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed amazing miracles and signs among the people.” There were those in a local synagogue who were fed up with his teaching and so they started spreading lies about him. Acts 6:11-12 records their accusation, “We heard him blaspheme Moses, and even God.” This roused the people, the elders, and the teachers of religious law. So they arrested Stephen and brought him before the high council.” Things didn’t go well for Stephen. At the end of his trial he made this statement, “You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.” Stephen’s accusers didn’t appreciate being called murderers. They were filled with rage but what sent them over the top was what Stephen said next, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”
Luke tells us that Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit during his trial. He clues us in that Stephen was a man full of God's grace and power. Any time I read the Bible and I read a phrase like, "full of the Holy Spirit, or God's power filled a person or a place" I know that something miraculous, amazing, inspiring and powerful is or is about to happen. Is it possible for a church to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be consumed by the power of God and be boring at the same time?
This statement by Stephen that he had seen the Son of Man in heaven sent the seething angry mob into a frenzy. They would not accept that Jesus was the Son of God. He was just another guy, another false Messiah, another disappointment and the fact that Stephen was claiming to see Jesus in heaven was too much for them to bear. So they took Stephen outside and under the supervision of a young, educated, power hungry, social climbing Pharisee named Saul, threw rocks at him until he was dead. The death of Stephen wasn’t enough though. The persecution of Jesus followers in Jerusalem intensified after Stephen’s death And this brings us to the Scripture we are focusing on today.
Acts 11:19-22, “Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews. However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. The power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord. When the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch.”
When the persecution amped up in Jerusalem many of the Jewish followers moved to different locations around the known world. They were still motivated to preach the Gospel of Jesus and most of them continued preaching only to Jews. But there were some who began preaching to gentiles, too. As a result of hearing the gospel many of the gentiles in Antioch became followers, too. The Scripture says, “The power of the Lord was with them.” This means that there were a lot of exciting, powerful things happening. This Jesus movement was anything but boring. At some point news reaches the church in Jerusalem that the Gospel of Jesus was changing lives in Antioch. The church is a people group. The church in Jerusalem was made up of Jewish followers, while the church in Antioch was made up of gentile followers. The church isn’t defined by race or nationality. The church of Jesus is a people group. Here are just a few Scriptures that speak to this truth.
Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile,slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 3:11 “In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.”
I’m an American citizen. You are a Canadian citizen. We should be proud of where we come from, we should be thankful and humbled by those who have sacrificed their lives to protect our nations and our freedoms. But to a Jesus follower we also understand that this world isn’t really our home.
The guy who wrote all three of these verses we just read is the same young, educated, power hungry, social climbing Pharisee who supervised the execution of Stephen. Saul, who after becoming a follower of Jesus took the name Paul put it this way, “ I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.” Philippians 3:5-7
What did Paul say he thought were valuable things? He thought the fact he was a practicing Jew was valuable; he considered his Israeli citizenship and that he belonged to the Pharisees valuable. But now he considers his Judaism, his Israel citizenship, even his Pharisee card as worthless things, because of what Jesus has done. He continues later in the chapter, “Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.” Philippians 3:17-20
The church is a people group who are citizens of heaven. And this understanding needs to drive how we act as people. I want to take notice of a few examples from the church in Jerusalem. First, they didn’t wait for the church in Antioch to request help. The leaders of the church in Jerusalem identified the church in Antioch as fellow citizens of heaven. They sent a guy known as “the encourager”. Barnabas was sent because his gift was encouraging people. Acts 11:23-24 says, “When he arrived and saw this evidence of God’s blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord. Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord.”
There's that phrase again, "full of the Holy Spirit." Does this sound like a boring church to you? The power of God was evident in this community of faith, so much so, that many people were brought to the Lord.
The church in Jerusalem was a great example to this new church in Antioch. They sent encouragement and help through Barnabas before the church even asked for it. Now listen how this example played out for the church in Antioch. “During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.) So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, everyone giving as much as they could.This they did, entrusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem.” Acts 11:27-30
Agabus told the church in Antioch there was going to be a famine. Notice the famine hadn’t hit yet. But because of the example of the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch was pro-active. They sent relief to their fellow citizens of heaven in another part of the world before the need was even evident. And the second thing I want us to notice, they sent their money with a guy they just met from a church that was primarily made up of Jews and who was accompanied by Saul who had months earlier supervised the execution of Stephen. The trusted each other. No matter what the person's past, even if it's murder, the power of the Gospel changes lives. The church is a people group made up of flawed individuals who all have sinned but are now living changed, renewed and Spirit filled lives. What in the world made this possible? This is the power of the Gospel of Jesus. Only the power of God can bring murderers, gentiles and Jews together for a common purpose. We are a people group. We are a family.
We need this understanding. We need to know that we are a global people group. We own the privilege of carrying the Gospel of Jesus to the world. Next week we are going to discuss the essential business of this people group in the world, but, here’s a preview.
Jesus told his disciples before he ascended back to His Father, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
If we think of Weymouth as Jerusalem and Nova Scotia as Judea and the Maritimes as Samaria and the rest of the world as the ends of the earth, we could read Jesus words to us like this: And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, in Weymouth, throughout Nova Scotia, in the Maritimes and to the ends of the earth.
We are a people group with the privilege and the honor of living the Word of God as witnesses. I believe that if we start accepting ourselves as the people group of heaven who are in place on earth to share the Gospel of Jesus as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to engage this mission; our lives, this church, our worship will be anything but boring.
Are you living as a witness for the gospel?
"For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead." Colossians 2:12
