Once upon a time I was told one of the cheesiest church jokes ever and I am sorry for repeating it here, but it helps introduce the topic. What kind of car did the disciples drive? A Honda, for they were all in one Accord. Apart from that being a bad joke, I am sure it was also a very cramped ride. Sorry I got caught up in the bad humor. But I always wonder what the church was like in it’s early years. Acts 2:44 says that all the believers were together and had everything in common. To this day that verse still amazes me. Not a few, not part, but all the believers were together and had everything in common. No wonder the church spread like wildfire. The thing that set them apart was their togetherness.

I guess the reason I feel the need to reflect on this is because of the anonymous spectator-driven things we call church today. In a world 2,000 years removed you can walk into these social clubs on every corner, get your Jesus fix and then go home and worry about yourself and no one else. What happened? When did we stop being the family of God and start being the loosely-organized collective of God? How in the world can we expect to reach the world with the love of Christ, a love defined by the fellowship of believers, when there is really not much of a fellowship of believers. I know this seems like a bit more of a rant*, but I really feel like we can do better…be better. May our prayer be for the Spirit to bind us together so that we might be set apart for the true work of the Kingdom. And then, perhaps we can be a sanctuary where isolation, loneliness, fear, paranoia, and mistrust are banished in the wake of love.

*This could be in part due to the pain medicine I am forced to take following my arthroscopic knee surgery. If so, I apologize.