From "The Original Church" (Heavenward Bound, April 2026)
The local church gathers to worship God & Jesus
Acts 2.42: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
This seems obvious but our religious environment demands a reminder: Local churches worship Jesus Christ! The worship of the original church consists solely of the worship we see done approvingly in the Bible: Observance of the Lord’s supper (Acts 20.7-8), Singing (Eph. 5.19; Col. 3.16), Gathering funds for needy saints and for the work of the church (1 Cor. 16.1-4), teaching/preaching (Acts 20.7), and prayer (Acts 2.42).
The local church gathers to teach/edify fellow Christians.
Acts 11 and 20 describe how Barnabas and Paul were engaged in the work of teaching and preaching in the context of the local church. Eph. 4.11-12 only strengthens this idea: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ…
This learning can and should be done individually also, but this equipping of the saints for ministry points squarely to the concept of congregational teaching & learning. Our time together is an important time of learning, growing, being challenged, and experiencing the joy of discovering God’s message in the scriptures.
The local church spreads the gospel message.
Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, references the fact that they, as a local church, were engaged in the spreading of the message of Jesus to the world around them: 1 Th. 1.8: “For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.”
Local churches are expected not merely to be seminaries, but recruitment centers for the kingdom of Heaven. We are charged, not merely individually but as a group, with the mission of spreading the gospel of Christ to this community, and others with whom we have contact.
The local church cares for fellow Christians in need.
Lastly, the original church engaged in caring for needy fellow Christians. Many groups today advertise how much good they do for their local communities, but fail to notice a key issue: There are zero references to local churches caring for the needy at-large from their collective treasuries in the New Testament. Such care is relegated solely to individual Christians, as Jesus taught in Matt. 6.2-4; 25.35-40; and Luke 14.12-14, and as Paul reiterates in Gal. 2.10. Each time a local church in the N.T. engaged in benevolent work, the beneficiary for that work was fellow Christians (see Acts 2.32-35, 44-45; 6.1-6; 11.27-30; Rom. 15.25-32; 1 Cor. 16.1-3; 1 Tim. 5.9-16).
God designed the church and gave it specific work to do. The church has no authority to be a vehicle for social reform, recreation, business ventures, secular education, or social services. Think about it: Is your church doing what God revealed in scripture that it should do?
Kyle Sanders
Kyle has been preaching since 2016 in Chiefland, Florida and Clinton, Mississippi before coming to work with the Jamestown church of Christ in 2021. Before preaching, he spent several years as a high school mathematics teacher in Indiana, Kentucky, and Florida. Kyle is a teacher at heart and brings his love of studying and interacting with students into his preaching and teaching efforts. He and his wife, a native Hoosier, have been blessed with five children, two dogs, a full house and zero leftovers.