Video: life of a star (see My Videos – stars_life).

As we look into space, we see amazing things. It is in one sense seemingly chaos out there. The stars shooting through space at speeds beyond our comprehension, stars colliding with other stars creating huge explosions, stars blowing up and imploding.

But on the other hand, it is beautifully ordered with exact physical parameters being met time and time and time again.

In the opening chapters of Acts we have seen something similar:-
i) Stars shooting through space at speeds beyond our understanding: the early church grew so fast from its beginning with about 15-20 members (Acts 1:13-14), went straight to 3000 members on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), grew again thereafter (Acts 2:47) and grew again after the event we have just read (Acts 6:7)
ii) stars colliding with other stars creating huge explosions: the early church collided with the Temple authorities twice (Acts 4 and 5)
iii) stars blowing up and imploding: the early church had its brushes with evil (Acts 5:1-11)

A little mini implosion begins at chapter 6. This is probably no more than a few years from after Jesus’ resurrection. The early church has grown and we have lots of people as members, some from the local area around Jerusalem, Judea and Galilee, and others from further a field: Grecian Jews and Hebraic Jews.

This is probably a culture divide rather than a purely linguistic divide. Yes, the Grecian Jews may have spoken more Greek than Aramaic (the local Jewish language) but that was because they had come from all over the Eastern Mediterranean to be in Jerusalem.

The Big Issue
It was the coming together of these very different groups, which caused a problem, a complaint about food distribution to the widows in the church. There was no social benefit system and if you had no wider family to care for you as a woman, you were destitute. How beautiful that the early church took these women on, cared for them and provided for them.

The Twelve react
The Twelve must be a name for the twelve disciples of Jesus, obviously less Judas Iscariot who killed himself after betraying Jesus, but his place was taken by Matthias (Acts 1:26). They came up with a solution to ensure that no-one was left out and all were cared for, but also a solution that saved them from being diverted from the task they felt Jesus had foremost given them, ‘prayer and the ministry of the word’ (6:4).

The solution
So the early church appointed 7 men, who were known as those who were full of the Holy Spirit and were wise. Interestingly, the 7 were, judging by their names, all Grecian Jews and one of them a full convert to Judaism. They were brought before the church and commissioned.

The result
Everyone received the care they needed. The Twelve were released to their foremost task. The early church grew rapidly (v.7)

This is a wonderful little cameo in the life of the early church, struggling with their new-found faith and community, working out how to be church successfully in day to day situations.

The foundational principles
Now what I want to do is to step back a little from this story and look at what the foundational principles going on behind the story are. It is these principles that will help us learn to deal with issues as they arise in the church today, and to deal with organising the church so that the word of God spreads in our generation (v.7)

Introduce: the heroes are gathered to work out how to defeat the evil Mordor. DVD – Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Rings – Disc One, Scene 27, from 36:56 to 39:53

What we see in that film clip is how the heroes gather together, consult with one another, make a suggestion and take action. They are just like our disciples in that early church, who faced with a problem, gathered together to consult over the problem, worked out a suggestion for solution and then acted to effect that solution: consultation leading to suggestion leading to action.

Consultation: v.2
Suggestion: v. 3-4
Action: v.5-6

The foundational attitudes
Well, those principles of consultation, suggestion and action were only going to work if the members of the early church were willing to let them work. You cannot lead if you don’t have followers – you’re just going for a walk on your own!

Those early church members needed to be willing to listen, willing to serve and willing to act. The consultation would have been useless if the church members had not been willing to listen. The suggestion to solve the problem would have been wasted if the church members had not been willing to serve. The action would have stalled if the church members had not been willing to get on with it, with enthusiasm and boldness.

Introduce: Video – Dad’s Army – recruitment moment in the police station: from 12:02 to 14:58 (2min 56 secs)

What the nation needed in those dark days of 1940, when defeat was all around, was the readiness of people to listen, to serve and to act. What the early church needed was the same: people ready to listen, to serve and to act.

Application
Two seem to occur to me. Firstly and briefly, in the life of this Church, I think we have come to a time when the widows are being neglected, the vulnerable are deserted and the ministry of the word is compromised.

Tim and I are both busy, almost too busy, and I think it would be right to suggest that more help is needed. If we are not careful (though in fact it is happening already) we are already neglecting the ministry of the word in order to do other tasks. Not that those tasks are not important, but they are not necessarily our calling. Shades of the Twelve.

And secondly, how are we to stop the widows being neglected, the vulnerable being deserted so that the ministry of the word is not being compromised. For the early church it was to seek members of the church to fulfil these needs, and life is no different today.

Christ Church needs its members to see the importance of serving God in some capacity. For some, they will be able to offer a huge commitment. For others, it will be a much smaller commitment. God knows our availability and our honesty in that.

Here I want to offer you some practical help, just a chance to think this through and come back and share with me some of your thoughts next week. Here is a link to play with during the week:-
www.churchgrowth.org/cgi-cg/gifts.cgi.
Let us be like the early church. Not afraid to consult, not afraid to suggest and not afraid to act, for the extension of the Kingdom of God and the glory of our Lord’s name.