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With each additional year, the distance from today’s contemporary church to the early church grows. Never has the church been as far and different from the early, beginning church as it has been in our current times. 

I would have made this claim a year ago, two years ago, or any time during my 40+ years as a pastor. Yet now such a statement seems even more blatantly obvious. Some may remember the day when sound systems in churches caused traditionalists to cringe. “Artificial sound!” was the cry of some opponents of such scandalous technology. More recently sanctuary televisions have become the norm for in-person worship and media like Zoom, You Tube, Facebook and others are standard forms of “Pandemic Time Worship.” 

All these would have been nearly impossible to envision a few decades ago, much less in the days of the Apostles who gathered the faithful for worship. First and foremost the early church could not conceive there would even be a time, much less a church, of 2020. They thought Jesus was returning soon and there would not even be a world 2 millennia hence, or at least not a world as they knew it.

Yet, I cannot help but wonder if right now we might actually be closer to those early followers of Jesus. During most of the Church’s history Christians gathered in buildings constructed for worship. Often they were huge structures making both architectural and theological statements by their design and the artwork of tapestries, sculptures, and stained glass windows. Even small churches often gave off a feeling of transcendence and worship.  

Now, where are we worshipping? In homes. During cooler weather, we may have worshiped outside in patios and gardens. Much of our worship is conducted in the homes of worship leaders or in parks or back yards. Many in the early church gathered for worship in homes. Some met in the large homes of the wealthy, often using their enclosed verandas or piazzas as they worshiped outdoors. 

The similarity we currently share with the early church does not end with the locations which we now utilize for worship. There is the cultural parallel that we, like those first Christians, live in a culture where being a Christian does not grant privileges in that culture. In the early church they were striving to succeed in their culture. In ours we are struggling with the loss of privilege the church once enjoyed in our culture as decline seems to be spreading like a slowly contagious virus. Too often many in the church see what is loss of privilege as “persecution.” 

So, maybe we ought to look to that early church and those early followers. We can look both for direction and for hope. The church began with twelve leaders and many more followers. It spread throughout the known world. It spread because there was a newness and freshness to this newfound faith and they could not keep it to themselves. It spread because they saw sharing the Good News as part of the joy and responsibility of being part of that gathered community. The privilege was not found in the culture, it was found in being a part of the faithful. 

Privileged ones….you and I who have been privileged to be called previously to gather together for worship in buildings, remain called and privileged to worship through televisions, computers, tablets, and phones. Like the faithful during the church’s infancy, we are also called to be the ones who proclaim this Good News to those in need of it. Who have you invited to share in our online worship? 

The story of Jesus needs to be told and it needs to be told and shared by us. Privilege brings with it responsibility. Can we identify with those early Christians? Can we learn from them? Though far apart in time, we may have never been closer. 

Pastor Gary