When We Gather | Tending Notes | Issue 2

I’m writing this from the Gulf Coast, toes in the sand, face toward the sea. We are halfway into a weeklong family vacation and I’ve snuck away while the little people nap for a few moments of solitude. Just to my left, a little girl stands at the water’s edge, silent until she squeals with delight every time the bubbly surf crashes over her toes, too overwhelmed for actual words. I know how she feels. I, too, am captivated by the vast power and beauty of the ocean. 

I think the first Christians we read about in Acts felt similarly. Many of them had just witnessed a man they loved die a gruesome death, walk out of the grave, and ascend to heaven a few weeks later, asking them to carry out an impossible mission. 

They found themselves standing at the edge of something unknown and much greater than their own capacity. A growing number of Christ followers, coming together to form the Church, multiplying in ways they couldn’t comprehend or take credit for. Exhilarating and terrifying; squeals of delight punctuated by silent pauses of inadequacy. 

At the end of Acts 2, we read about these first followers as they stood on the shoreline of the Church. This is a familiar passage, and we often skip to the part that describes their activities. If they’re to be our example, isn’t it only right to try to do what they did–to serve and feed and teach? And yet, in our eagerness for the to-do list, it’s possible to miss one little line, hidden there in verse 43. In the middle of breaking bread, witnessing miracles, and preaching the word, we read that “Everyone was filled with awe”. Like people staring down the ocean, faced with the magnitude of waves crashing at their feet, they were overcome with wonder. 

The success of the early church wasn’t the result of good strategy, strong messaging, or engaging services, but a unified, all-encompassing amazement at the reality of Christ and the power of His Spirit. These early disciples “held all things in common” because their eyes were fixed in the same direction: toward the vast, mysterious beauty of the Gospel. In Christ, they saw both their neediness and all their needs fulfilled. In Him, they found themselves, and one another. One body, united by and in and through Christ and a shared awe of Him. This is the miracle of the Church. A gift to those first disciples trying to find their way. A gift to us as we do the same. 

Every seven days, we have a chance to join others around the globe and throughout history and gather in our local church. Each week, we get to refocus our gaze and testify to one another about the waves of living water that have made us new. As a body of believers, we taste and see…and smell and feel and hear that the Lord is good; in the faces and hugs of our brothers and sisters, the sounds of their voices commingling with ours as we sing, the scents and flavors of bread and juice, broken and poured out for us.  And like those first disciples, we are filled with awe. 

But are we, really? 

If we’re honest, most of us would admit the Sunday Morning Gathering feels too normal to fill us with any sort of awe. We stand, sing, bow and listen, distracted and unenthused. We fill our time together thinking about attendance numbers, budget lines, and programming and call it church membership. It’s perhaps a bit like standing at the edge of the ocean and only ever staring at the sand caught between our own toes. Were we there? Yes. But rather than experiencing the beauty and wonder before us in a way that marks our lives, we walk away feeling discontent and ready for lunch. 

We’re all guilty of this. After all, the work of gazing upon an incomprehensible God requires humility  and faith and still we fall short. It feels easier and more productive to focus on things we can control and improve.So we keep our heads down and our gaze inward, missing the work of the Holy Spirit that happens when those he calls His home are all in one place. 

This is not the vision God had for His Church in Acts, and it’s not His desire for us two thousand years later. He knew the life He was calling us to would be long and difficult, so He gave us one another, not just as acquaintances or friendly faces or members of the same congregation, but as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. We’re to be a family marked by His grace, reminding one another to lift our eyes toward the One whose wonders never cease. We’re to imitate the followers in Acts, to be sure, but not just in word and deed. We’re also to behold what they beheld: A Living Hope who makes the dead alive and transforms ordinary people like us into an eternal Kingdom. Because when we see by the Light of the World, we too will be filled with awe that illuminates everything we say and do, on the days we gather and all six days in between. 

Let us not believe the lie that church just is an event to attend or place to belong. Let us not assume the gathering that occurred in Acts 2 is an unattainable thing of the past. Instead, may we rediscover the miracle and mystery that is the Church: the body of Christ; a bride preparing for and awaiting her groom, the coming King. And may we gather with joyful expectation; not in a service that stirs our emotions, but in a Father who loved us enough to unite once-sinful hearts and heal blind eyes, that we may gaze in amazement upon His beauty together.