Do you like it? Not in a 'boy likes girl' sort of way, but do you get excited that your community is fulfilling the Great Commission and joyfully! Or are you just spending another night with a 'hang-out' crowd, or another Bible study, or another 'save-the-world' service group with no real discussion on Truth?
If you're anything like me you spend more than enough time evaluating whether or not your Life Group, Cell-group or Missional Community is healthy or not. While every church may have a different matrix for discerning health I want to take some time to discuss the early church koinonia (fellowship gatherings) that was forming and multiplying following the explosion of growth in Acts 2.
Disclaimer: I realize that some very brilliant theologians (much more so than I) push against the idea that the community we find in Acts 2:42-47 should ever be considered normal, especially not in our Western culture. Others lean in the opposite direction and say that if the early Church were able to more readily fulfill the Great Commission in Matthew 28 through tight-knit family/friend communities, then we ought to adapt and adopt.
I agree.
That said, I want to use this passage in Acts as a dynamic discussion guide to gauging healthy community. It's not nearly definitive and it doesn't have to be normative...but it says something about community in a time where the Spirit was rapidly moving (not to mention it was deemed noteworthy to be included in our Canon), so let's lean into it a bit.
Before we get started I've stolen and compiled different sources worth of information and put together a 'health' diagram to foster our conversation. You'll notice that there are several stages a community group grows through, each one being necessary and all a piece of the divine puzzle that is co-Mission.
I'm going to start with the assumption that if the Son of God rose from the dead to send us on a mission, then that mission must be central to our community - and so every other 'stage' of communal growth only drives us to our mission which never actually ends. In fact, if your group is on mission then you will grow through these stages time and again.
In the next post we'll start Teaching and clarify the text, ask some questions and press on our own experience in our community groups.
Read Acts 1-5 - crazy times. The Master Plan of Evangelism is a great compass in this discussion as well.