God has been using the difficult times in 2021 to get us back to the original pattern of the Gospel, discipleship and doing Church as in the New Testament. What is the original?
1.The Original Gospel
- Of preaching repentance and following Jesus with a radical commitment, because the kingdom is near (Mk 1:15,17)
- Preaching accompanied by expressing this love in healings, deliverance and miracles (Mt 10:7-8)
- Jesus came to baptise people with the Spirit and with fire (Mt 3:11)
- The Apostle Paul practised this: on meeting up with 12 disciples of John, he told them about Jesus and then prayed for them to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and they immediately began to pray in the Spirit and prophecy (Acts 19:1-6)!
- Preaching the Gospel in the context of the Return of Jesus (Tit 2:12-13). Believers were incredibly motivated to spread the Gospel and disciple because they thought Jesus would return soon and they needed to get themselves and others ready. Even though it’s 2000 years after Jesus died, all will die and then be raised to face the judgement when He comes. So the urgency is still there!
- This is the original Apostolic Gospel.
In 1910 Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren arrived in Brazil to preach the Gospel. They preached a simple message, “Jesus saves, baptises in the Holy Spirit and heals” and then trained the Brazilian converts to do the same. The results were outstanding. In just 10 years they had 1000 believers in Belem in 3 churches and the Brazilians they trained planted another 50 churches in Para. After this their Church, Assemblies of God, spread throughout the nation.
See EXTRAORDINARY CHURCH GROWTH IN BRAZIL: 5 LESSONS FOR TODAY for more on Berg and Vingren.
See RETURNING TO THE APOSTOLIC GOSPEL: 4 WAYS IT IS SO MUCH BIGGER for more on the original Gospel.
So let’s return to the original Apostolic Gospel and preach it with power!
2.The Original Church
Today we invest a lot of money in building churches, that is a big building to meet in. Large buildings do have their uses. They can be used for conferences, serve the community and have lots of ministries that reach the community inside. But Jesus never told the disciples to build a church building and Jesus was a skilled carpenter. In fact no-one built such a building until 200 years after Jesus!
So where did Jesus meet? Outside or in the homes of his disciples or friends.
So where did the Early Church meet for 200 years? In the houses of members (e.g. Philemon 1:2, Rom 16:3-5)
Why was this? Because the Church is not a building but you, believers, people (1 Pet 2:5). God builds His Church through people who love Him and are considered as living stones like the Corner Stone which is Jesus. So we don’t “go to Church” but we are the Church and do Church wherever we are, at home, at work, when we meet together at a restaurant.
Hence, Church can happen anyway and God can build anyway. When we focus on a church building as the definition of “Church” we think of Church as just a place that we go to and planting another church is making a copy of the original which is time consuming, expensive and needs to also pay the salary of a full-time Pastor.
But when the church meets anywhere, this can grow easily and anyone who knows the Word of God and who pursues a godly life can lead. The Kingdom of God now invades all of society.
Many denominations in Cuba have seen a big increase in growth of the Church due to the work of the Holy Spirit and by meeting in homes and building the Church through relationships and visiting people in their locality to spread the Gospel. See “Cuba’s Great Awakening” by Kurt Urbanek.
So let’s return to the original way of doing Church. That’s independent of buildings.
3.Making Disciples is our priority not more numbers at church
- It’s the command of Jesus (Mt 28:18-20)
- Paul commanded Timothy to do the same (2 Tim 2:2)
- Even the demonised man after being set free, was told to go home to his home and testify there (Mk 5:19-20) and he had no training whatsoever!
Berg and Vingren focussed on making disciples and then immediately training them to do the same! So the Church and its growth was not dependent on them.
See HOW TO DISCIPLE THE NEXT GENERATION: 7 PRACTICAL THINGS TO DO for more on making disciples.
So let’s return to the original plan of making disciples!
4.Obey the Holy Spirit
Your church leaders and Pastor are there to serve you and help you. But the first person believers should listen to and obey is the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus with us (Jn 16:13) and His role is to make Jesus known to us and teach us about all things.
We can hear His voice as the Lord’s sheep (Jn 10:3-5). It’s not difficult. It’s a question of believing and then practising every day.
Today we often depend on ourselves or others instead of the Holy Spirit.
There is a great story of how one day Daniel Berg was walking to church for the Sunday service. Fifty men lay in wait behind bushes along the road to the church to assault him and kill him. However, on this day the Holy Spirit told Daniel Berg to use a different road and this saved his life and greatly angered the fifty men!
What now?
So this New Year, let’s go back to the original Gospel, the original Church, the original plan of discipleship and obeying the Holy Spirit. This will powerfully change lives and may even begin local revivals where we live!
To read more in depth see: the books
PREPARING FOR A DIVINE VISITATION and
GRACE OUTPOURINGS: 21 Days Revival Devotional. which is a devotional using stories and verses about revival