Three to Thrive: It’s not what you think

Baptists used to encourage church attendance with the slogan, “Three to Thrive.” The “three” were the key services of the church for years—Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship, and Wednesday prayer meeting. These three primary meeting times are still common in many churches and are going strong and profitable. In recent years, churches have been more flexible on the specific times and places, but the general principle still applies. Recently, we have had a series of blog entries on the benefits of each of these services. (why-come-to-church-on-wednesday-night/,  why-do-we-have-a-sunday-night-service, six-reasons-to-attend-sunday-school, isnt-sunday-morning-enough)

But there is a different type of “three” that is also important.

While not everything the church of Acts did was normative, and we are not necessarily limited in our activities to what they did, considering the methods of that local church has merit. After all, that church was a tremendously successful in reaching its world. Its leaders were Apostles who had just spent three years living with the Messiah. If anyone should know how the church should function, it should be them. It is worthy then to see the three primary groups that made up the early church.

Congregational Worship

“They continued in the Temple” (Acts 2:46). Actually the text says they continued daily in the Temple and from house to house. We are not sure whether they actually met daily in the Temple or the combination of Temple and house to house meetings was daily. What we do know is that this early church met as a body—as a congregation. Some contend that there was no single place in which a young church so large could have met. However, the Temple mount, then and now, can handle such a congregation.

As the Church spread, weekly worship in local church bodies continued. It seems the churches reflected the practices of the Jewish Synagogue that had been so successful since the Babylonian exile. These services included public prayer (1 Corinthians 11), preaching or prophecy (1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 4), singing (Colossians 3:16 ), the public reading and explanation of scripture (1 Timothy 4:13), reports from missionaries (Acts 14:27), and regular giving (1 Corinthians 16:1-2). It occurred on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16) and was the moment where the church worshiped together in unity before God. It is still what churches do today and there is no substitute for it for an entire congregation or an individual believer.

Small Group Discipleship

“From house to house”. By nature of the meeting place these were often small groups that were considered the ideal discipling structure in Jewish society. Depending on the size of an ancient Jewish home, these groups probably numbered somewhere between 8 and 25. These were not just fellowship groups, but focused on teaching, prayer, leading and discipleship training (Acts 2:41-48). Jesus trained his own disciples in a small group of 12. The practice is loosely based upon the Rabbinical model. It is likely that the house groups of Acts 2 were not gender or age specific, but rather represented both men and women, young and old, and eventually newer as well as more mature believers. Teaching in this setting becomes more conversational and less formal. There is opportunity to interact and ask questions. Discussion can move from principles to actual, real, immediate life application seamlessly. These small group meetings became the core discipleship program of the early church.

Some churches continue this model today in small group home meetings or small group adult Sunday School classes. The large adult Sunday School class model with groups of 25 and up does not fill the same needs that this model does. The danger of the small group meeting is that it can become more about casual fellowship than true spiritual discussion and application. Relationships should be built on a true spiritual foundation, not just casual friendship.

One-on-one Accountability

Did the New Testament Church actually practice one-on-one discipleship? I think I can make a case that it did. Barnabas seems to have had a mentoring relationship in the beginning with Saul of Tarsus—at least until Saul became Paul and took over the leadership role (probably on the first missionary journey in Cyprus). Paul also had such a relationship with Timothy and with others.

The primary application of Titus 2 is encouraging these one-on-one personal accountability and instructional relationships. They have some interesting characteristics. They are gender-specific—men with men and women with women. They focus on areas of personal holiness, Christian character, marriage, and home responsibilities. Some of these issues are likely not as openly addressed in the mixed gender small group meetings. They allow for very personal, very confrontational accountability that cannot happen in any other setting.

Some churches today do this in a very organized manner, but in most settings, if this happens at all, it happens in an informal ad hoc way as people build individual friendships. This is an area where most churches need to be more deliberate.

It might be time to re-evaluate your own personal life and church ministry. Holding three services, with the same size group, doing nearly the same thing in each service, is not likely meeting the discipleship needs of new believers and therefore not effectively carrying out the Great Commission.