Start Small, Stay Focused

We were talking on Sunday on how to be the community of Christ by being dedicated, as the first Church was, to Fellowship. Since Sunday, I’ve had several people ask me “How do we get everyone together? How do we get started?” I have been praying over this for a few days now, and here is something I’ve come to understand: Christians, especially modern ones, want to do something big. Yet Jesus tells His disciples in Acts 1 to start at home (you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the utter ends of the earth). For this particular case, start small, don’t work on a grand scale, invite someone to coffee, eat a meal with them, get to know a brother and sister in Christ and form a bond with them. Then invite them to do it with you as you start again with someone new.

Jesus didn’t begin with grand miracles, He began, after His baptism, by following the Spirit. He fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days, appealing to God, and wrestling with temptation. After this, Jesus called people to follow Him. He began by working on His disciples. He trained them, He taught them, and then He invited them in to His ministry. Jesus then sent them out, two by two, to do what they had seen Him do, and what they had done alongside Him. He didn’t start with a huge following; He began with 12 guys. What is more, we find out that He also grew His ministry from hundreds down to those same 12 when the teaching got hard, and 1 of them, in love with money, sold Him out.

I say all that to say this: we’re not called to create a movement; we’re called to be imitators of Christ. So, start as Jesus did. Read God’s word, fast, pray, learn to be led by the Holy Spirit, hold fast to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Call a few people to walk with you as you seek to use the gifts and talents the Holy Spirit grants you, and build up the body of Christ with them. Be a disciple, make disciples, then encourage your disciples to make disciples. See what needs there are, first in your church community, and then in your larger community. Meet needs, and invite others to go along with you as you do, and let everything you do be a vehicle for the Gospel. God, through the Word and the Holy Spirit, will lead you in this, but stay focused on Jesus, the Cross and the Empty Tomb as the motivation for your actions. Serve Christ and serve others. But start small.

1 Corinthians 12-13

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.