The Birth of the Church

If you want to understand where Christian churches came from the very best place to start is the book of Acts, in the New Testament of the Bible. Just prior to the first chapter of Acts, Jesus (the central figure of all the Bible) had been killed by the local religious leaders and Roman ruler. You can read more about the details here. But the summation is that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, which enraged the religious leaders. Subsequently; Jesus was put to death. Even though the rulers thought they were in control of the situation, they were fulfilling God's plan, and Jesus purpose in coming to the earth.

Jesus was not the first, nor the last person to die for love, or what he believed it. But he is the only one who was raised from the dead, never to die again! 
So if you are wondering where the Church came from, it is this: Jesus the Son of God, was born as a human (yet was still fully God), lived, was killed, then he rose from the dead and ascended back to heaven.

This is the foundation that the Church is built on.

When Jesus ascended to heaven (read about is in Acts) he promised his followers that he would send the Holy Spirit, so that they could do what he did and carry on his mission on earth. On the day we call Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to fill up Jesus' true followers, and the official Church was born.

Jesus is God, who was born as a man, which is called "incarnation". Jesus did this so that he could being reconciliation between God and mankind. This was accomplished through Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Ephesians 5:25 tells us that “(Jesus) Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. It was always God's plan to heal the divide that separated us from him through Jesus. And through Jesus to form the "Church".

This Church is and always was, God's idea. Jesus was sent for the sake of making the Church and Jesus is the only one who can build the Church. Christians can get it wrong at times, and either be effected by the world, or our own "good ideas" and get off track.

Gandhi famously said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."? This is sadly true at times. But doesn't have to be!

Jesus himself told his disciples that it would be Him that builds the church, meaning make it grow and take the form that God desires. (Matt 16:18)

If Jesus is truly building the Church it will look like Him, and even the famous Mahatma Gandhi, would like it!

The definition for church is: The church is the community of all true believers for all time.

The ALL TIME portion is very important. This means it doesn't just include people who have faith in Jesus after he lived died and rose. Wonderfully, God includes all people who had faith in God from the past, even before Jesus was incarnate. We know this from many passages in scripture such as Hebrews 12:1 Everything in the Old Testament, the law, all the prophets, the priests and sacrifices, were pointing ahead to Jesus. So even though we don’t see an official assembly called “The Church” until Acts, the people who believed in the past are considered a part of the church also.

The church is both seen with our eye and unseen at the same time. Even though we can walk up to a building where the church is gathering on a Sunday, the reality is, only God knows who is truly a believer. Sadly there are many people who go to church that don’t really have a relationship with Jesus. Adversely, there are people who never go to a building where the church is gathered, who are in a relationship with Jesus. (Though scripture tells us they are truly missing out on something wonderful and necessary to their faith).

When we say Church, we mean the gathering of God’s people to worship God. This happens down the street from you and all over the world!

Because when we say “Church” we mean all the people past, present and future who call Jesus Lord and Saviour, this means all the congregation of saints is absolutely unequaled in its diversity. Diversity is an important word in our culture right now, but do you know who created it? God did! There is no group of people that can compare to the beauty, colourfulness, and diversity than that of the Church.

In the bible there are many metaphors uses to describe the church for us. But by far most common metaphor that we see used in reference to the church is “The bride of Christ”.

The whole Bible creates a wonderful story arc, it starts in Genesis with creation and a wedding (Adam and Eve) and it ends with restoration and a wedding! The wedding of Jesus to his beautiful bride, the church.

So that is how the church was born, but it’s important to understand the purpose of the church.  Yes, it is a group of people gathered to worship God together. But even more than that it is a foreshadowing of heaven, a wedding feast, filled with people from every tribe, nation and tongue, from all of history past and present.

The whole point, from beginning to end, is that God is a God who wants to BE with his people.