Saturday, February 17, 2024

The Christocentric Church

Have you noticed? The early church was more like a family than an organization. I noticed this again while reading Acts this morning. 

Disciples followed Jesus in everyday life in an organic way. Christianity was the body of Christ in ordinary houses. Believers met (among other things -- teaching, fellowship, prayer) to eat. Luke calls this "the breaking of the bread" (Acts 2:42). The early church was a table community, whereas the churches I'm most familiar with today are pulpit communities. In the church of Acts, the Lord's Supper wasn't an addendum to the preaching service, observed quarterly or maybe monthly. Furthermore, the Supper was a substantial meal with a symbolic meaning, rather than a symbolic meal with a substantial meaning. Christ was front and center in their gatherings. "When you come together in order to eat, wait for each other" (1 Cor. 11:33). Can the church of today recapture this emphasis? Our pulpit-centricity could be a bug, not a feature. (The problem is NOT the pulpit but the anthropocentricity.) 

Christocentrism displaces nothing except all other centers!