Acts 6 is a fairly short chapter with two stories in it. I believe the second story fits best with the next chapter so I want to focus on the story in verses 1 through 7.
When we left the first church it seemed like a perfect church, unless your name is Ananias or Sapphira. In chapter 6 we see the first church dealing with its first congregation wide internal conflict. One half of the church believed that the other half was ignoring their needs. So the first church needed to respond. (By the way this should prove their is no such thing as a perfect church, so stop looking for one).
How did it respond? Did it ask the leadership to spread its self more thinly? No. The twelve disciples said it would be wrong for them to neglect the ministry of the Word and the ministry of prayer to do another ministry.
The leaders in the church did a few great things here and the first is that they didn't underestimate the enormous power of the ministries of prayer and sharing the Word. Those two ministries are immensely important for the life of a church and these men were wise to keep up their work there.
So how did the first church rise above their first congregation wide internal conflict?
Men stepped up in leadership. These men were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. The Church and our churches need men to be filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom and to step up in leadership. When this happened in the first church, "the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly".
Women, this does not mean there are not leadership and service roles for you. Of course there are, in fact I would not be who I am today without the many women who were Sunday school teachers and servant-leaders around my life. What I am saying is that for a church to have great growth men need to step up.
Women are filling many roles and spreading themselves thin because men are dropping the ball. Step up men. I'm sure the women of the church would agree with me that they want the men of the church to be prayer warriors, ministers of the word, servants, and leaders. In fact I believe men should be leading more in every aspect. What woman dreams of being with a man that is an impressionable tag-along?
So men, step up. Minister in your local church in the capacity God created you for. If that's teaching, then teach. If it is serving widows and orphans, then serve. But the bottom line is step up and do something. When we do men, our local churches will grow in influence in our communities. So if you want God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven... then step up men today.
Amen! I definitely believe those women were important in your life because there were not men who "stepped up" so they "stepped in". The other thing we women need to be careful about. Just because we think it needs to be done and a man is not stepping up doesn't mean we should step in to do it. That is just allowing them to not step up. Maybe instead, we women should be encouraging [not nagging] our men to step up and be all that GOD wants them to be.
ReplyDeleteWritten by: A woman who is learning not to step in but instead to encourage and to pray a man into stepping up.
''A woman who is learning not to step in but instead to encourage and to pray a man into stepping up.'' Amen sister!
ReplyDeleteGod has been doing this in me too..it's so hard when you want to step in. He has shown me more of the support role I play and I fit into.
"By the way this should prove their is no such thing as a perfect church, so stop looking for one." #boom
ReplyDelete-Patrick Russell Ray
1) Patrick, this is not Twitter. No hash tags needed.
ReplyDelete2) Thank you for your responses ladies. Encouragement is the one thing that all men deeply desire. Even though many men don't show it, encouragement is what fuels us. We need respect and I think women want to be around men they can respect and that are respected.
PS: The content of this blog post was included in our prayer group tonight.
ReplyDeleteKB: what a flirt
ReplyDelete