"Super Church": 1 Super Team

Focus Passage: Acts 2:42-47

It was only a week before the playoffs and the Saint Louis Cardinals were hot. When a starting pitcher had the occasional bad night, the bullpen brought the team back in the game. Injuries were no problem because players could be called up from AAA ball to fill the void. The team had a great skipper who managed his players well and left them all with smiles on their faces. What would it be like to be a member of a church that worked like that? What elements need to come together for a church to be on fire like a great baseball team? What would it take for every player to be “all in” and make their church team look like champions?

The team listens to the coach v. 42. Three thousand new believers joined the church on Pentecost hungry for the scripture. These were people eager to listen to the Lord and learn what it meant to be a child of God. They would sit with others and passionately learn everything that they could about Jesus and about God’s plan for the world. The Bible brought healing for their wounds and direction for their lives. Scripture kept the team marching in the same direction.

They had each other’s backs v.45. Within months of Pentecost, the persecution of Christians began. Those who couldn’t get jobs were fed. Some who were kicked out of their Jewish or Roman families for their faith were given housing. They survived because they took care of one another. If anyone saw a need, they made sacrifices to support each other because faith was a team sport in which everyone was responsible to each other.

They wanted to go all the way v. 43. The ministry was nothing short of miraculous. They saw the power of God and aimed for the sky. They counted on the Lord to help them beat the odds and share the faith. They knew that God would help them as they helped their neighbors. They knew that the opposition was strong, but that God was stronger. They tapped the power of Lord in prayer and never looked back.

Just as people flock to see a baseball team on fire, people will flock to the church that does ministry like the church did in the book of Acts. This is a church where people feel welcome and where God is in charge. They care about their community and seem to do the impossible by the power of God. Broken people are healed and ordinary men and women do extraordinary things because they believe that God has called them to change their world. God’s people can do great things when Christians commit themselves to the word, to each other and to the ministry that God has given them. A church where people are “all in” like the early Christians is a church on fire.