New Testament Patterns of Church Life

Last week we hosted Steve Atkerson and Tim Melvin of the New Testament Restoration Foundation of Atlanta for a workshop on New Testament patterns of church life. In one day they managed to talk about apostolic tradition, the Lord's supper, consensus governing, and interactive church meetings. They also gave out Steve's book, ekklesia.

Henry was the primary organizer of the workshop and our fellowship was the sponsor of the weekend. As such, Steve and Tim spent the first 2 nights with us and the last night with Brennan. I really enjoyed the time with Steve and Tim and appreciate their passion for planting and teaching new house church fellowships.

While out of town last week, I began to read the book. Of course the book echoes much of the workshop but includes some additional subjects.

The primary question posed is "Should we hold to the New Testament patterns of church life?". The answer to this determines how we organize and govern churches, the size of the churches, and how we understand the purpose of the Lord's supper.

I encourage anyone with an interest in such subjects to go to the NTRF website and get a copy of ekklesia and investigate the scriptures and decide for yourself. As for myself, I believe that we should look no further than the traditions handed down to us by Apostolic tradition.

But Jesus doesn't want us to just do these things in a robotic way, He wants to be the center of our meetings. We must keep this in mind or we can fall into the same habits that we see in many institutional churches.