The church (and most American Christians for that matter) are always trying to find new and creative ways to make Christianity fun and more palatable for unbelievers. The unfortunate result of most of these ideas that are attempted is a watered-down gospel that loses its power and ability to change lives (not because of the gospel but because of the compromise to make things "fun"). You see, Jesus has already given us the blueprint for what the church should be like and how it should operate. The plans are in the book of Acts and are plainly written in black, white, and even a little red when Jesus speaks to and converts Paul on the road to Damascus, Acts 9:4-5). We don't need to reinvent anything as the Church of Jesus Christ; we simply need to follow the tried and true principles that are already laid out for us by the early church.
God is infinite, sovereign, holy, and impossible for us finite humans to figure out (in terms of the bigger picture), but we can absolutely know His will. We can know how He would have us operate as churches and as individuals, we simply need to align our lives and churches with His word. He has given us a glimpse of how to operate amongst our fellow man through His son, Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh and lived amongst us. Jesus was fully God and fully man, and He lived perfect and blameless; he loved and showed grace and mercy perfectly. God also gave us imperfect examples that we can relate to and learn what to do and what not to do from the disciples and apostles. Men like Peter, James, John, Stephen, and Paul are people we can all relate to and learn from, including how to overcome and press forward in our failures. He has given us as churches an example of how to operate through the early church in the book of Acts also known as "The Acts of the Apostles". In the book of Acts, God gave the increase and added to the church regularly, and those that were added were being served and were serving. It was not through gimmicks and programs but through a people devoted to one another. The early church met the needs of each other, which means they cried with each other, sacrificed for one another, prayed with each other, ate with each other, met with each other, and eventually died with each other for the sake of the gospel (many of them). All of these sacrifices were made to simply preach Jesus and further the Kingdom of God. Unity and being of one mind and one accord isn't rocket science. It simply means to lay aside self-interest and shift your interest to your fellow man or brethren and look to meet their needs before even your own. Now I'm not saying that comes naturally to us as humans, and has to be a work being done by God and needs to be taught, prayed for, and preached at our churches. On the rare occasions that you stumble on churches that have this principle of unity in place, where they spend time together and fully support participating and funding the advancement of the gospel as a top priority. Those churches have revival, and God adds to the church daily those that are being saved (Acts 2:47). That doesn't mean they are mega churches and they may not even be a big church (as far as numbers are concerned), but they have true converts and disciples that know and understand the will of God and the great commission.
The early church prioritized actually praying together. They were on their faces individually praying to God, but they were together doing this. Churches today have scheduled prayer meetings but don't pray; they say an opening prayer, play games, and sing songs. The early church broke bread from house to house, and they were committed to the teachings. They were entrenched in learning doctrines that the scriptures teaches about God and Jesus. These things were priority number one when it came to the early church, along with evangelism. Now take those aforementioned principles and applications of the early church and pull up the websites of the 2 or 3 biggest churches in your area and look at their slate of events. It's pretty easy to see why true revival isn't happening, isn't it? This is so easy, but so hard for American Christians to grasp because we are simply selfish, self-absorbed, and, in reality, a God-forsaken people. We seek our own interests, our own hobbies, and our own desires, then we come to our local church and complain about how everything is done and complain that more fun things should be in place (again, self-seeking). I can say this because I'm not a pastor, and there won't be any repercussions for me saying it, but I see it and have seen it at every church I've been a part of in America. I also have decided, as much as possible, that I'm not going to participate in that kind of behavior. And by God's grace, if and when I'm given any level of leadership (Bible study, outreach event, etc.), I will look to Jesus and the early church as how I will lead and facilitate. That means I'm going to bring up the hard truths, I'm going to preach the full gospel (heaven/hell, the bloody cross, the resurrection, and the fact that we have power over sin) at these events. Also I'm going to encourage other brothers and sisters to surrender to Jesus, to serve others, and to also be a witness in this lost, dying, desperate world.
So this was a rant that may be a tough pill to swallow, but this is something should all embrace and take to heart. And I really don't mean that we should not be trying new and creative things in our churches. But I am saying that we must be a people who pray individually and corporately as a church and that we shouldn't just fill our calendar with events for the sake of having events. There are no shortcuts; the gospel can't be made palatable, it just needs to be preached when we have events. Evangelism and the presentation of the gospel has to be a priority at events we have at our churches and Christian organizations. The result of following the already laid-out blueprint by the early church, will be lives forever eternally changed and transformed by the power of the gospel.
God bless!
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