Today, we started with a stunning video of the history of the Church and then finished our discussion of Acts 2 as it gives the first description of the early Church. Start your discussion by having each person share what you learned from the video about the history and development of the Church during the past 2,000+ years. What would happen to the Church today if it were like you and your community group? What can you do together this week to further the mission of the Church?
1. What common characteristic did the three greatest churches in the first century—Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch—share? What does this say to us today—does it give us hope? How does it motivate us to be the Church today?
2. The people of the early Church were known as people who had been with Jesus. How are the people of the Church known today? What can you do today to continue or change the way the Church is known in this time?
3. Acts 2:42-47 captures the first description of the early Church. Reread those verses and then discuss how the Church is doing today in demonstrating each of those characteristics that were true of the early Church.
4. Todd said that the Book of Acts is Luke's effort to answer the question of what the Church, the body of Christ, should look like. Then Todd shared a number of the attributes of the early Church gleaned from Acts 2:42-47. Have your community group take a few minutes to list as many of the characteristics of the early Church as you can from Acts 2:42-47. Which of those characteristics are still true of the Church today? Which are true of your little church that is your community group? What can you do to make the Church today like the early Church?
5. In answering the question of what we should be doing today to be the Church, Todd emphasized the opportunity we have to be taking in the Word of God through The Journey. Check it out at wmcc.jointhejourney.com. He also encouraged us to be about the engine of the Church, which is prayer. God makes the Church go, and prayer is how we connect with Him. Are you praying for the Church? For this manifestation of the Church called Watermark? For God's people to be radically transformed? For God's people to be radically used by God to transform others?
6. The Church is the hope of the world. Day-by-day. It depends on you because the Church is you. How then will you live? Together, let us live so that others will know that we have been with Jesus.