A New Season for CityPoint - House Church

This past Sunday was CityPoint’s first official Sunday not meeting in the evening. We’re entering a new season in our church life where it makes more sense for discipleship to lean into a morning time slot, though we haven’t been able to find a suitable location to facilitate a typical church gathering. So to be faithful to the call to make disciples, CityPoint will be moving to a house church model in this new season. 

In our prayer meeting this past Sunday morning, in a packed house, we spent time reading scripture and praying together. Some of the passages in particular show the heart of the direction we hope to develop in the coming months. Two places in the book of Acts it is recorded what the believers' lives and interactions looked like, living in the world, but not of the world, loving God and loving people. Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37 are both similar pictures of their life in their context, and their service to their communities and devotion to the church body. 

Acts 2:42–47 (ESV) - The Fellowship of the Believers -
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

There are several things we see here that should be both encouraging and convicting. While this is not what we would call a prescription for a system of church, it does function as being descriptive of a way that they acted and reacted in their culture and context. Regardless there are elements here that are necessary for what a Spirit led Christ-like church looks like, which we want to grow in and emulate in our culture and context today. 

For the early church here in Acts, they had the apostles there with them, but likewise, we have the immense blessing of the canon of Scripture easily available to us, and millennia of church history and scholarship to learn from. We too should be devoting ourselves to the study of this bottomless well of Truth, worshiping God with our minds. And the context in which this study should happen is regular fellowship and interaction with other believers, because no one is a spiritual island, and we are called to break bread, both in communion and in generous hospitality where we also take the opportunity to devote time to prayer. In and through these things for believers in the generations that followed there have been continued miraculous works of the Spirit, most importantly in us both individually and collectively, as we see the fruit of the Spirit increasing in and through lives changed by the Gospel. A soul being brought from death to life, darkness to light, is more miraculous and eternally consequential than we can reckon in our short lifetimes. 

So how did this spiritual new life play out in the early church context? They spent time together and shared their resources, including their time, recognizing they were now a part of a new family, citizens of a new kingdom, not siloing themselves off from others as we are so tempted to do. They used wisdom and generosity to serve those in need, not hoarding for themselves, but seeking opportunity to be a blessing. And all the while they worshiped and fellowshipped and were joyful, praising God and finding favor with others. This attitude is instructive to us in what our heart and actions towards God and others should look like. 

Moving forward in this next season with CityPoint, we want to look at the heart and actions of the early church in Acts and see God grow and develop us spiritually and communally, praying that He would add to our number day by day those who are being saved.