Vision of the Sharing Room
Acts 2:42-47
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe[a] came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
We have many rooms in our church that are named after places in the Bible. For example, our fellowship room is named Galilee, Jesus’s hometown as well as the place where many of Jesus’s disciples were taught. The very last room is the prayer room is named Gethsemane after the area Jesus went to pray. Across from it, we have a vision for a room called Samaria, the place we see in the Bible where people were abandoned and ignored. However, it was also the place where Jesus met and restored the heart of the Samaritan woman at the well. We plan to use the room to serve the broken and less fortunate.
A lot of time we think about our identity as a Christian through our relationships with others, family, and God. What about the identity of church? Many may see church only as a community of believers. However, this is not the goal as we also want to reach out to non-believers as well. Church is also a community of evangelism, love, and worship. But more than these, church is a serving community because Jesus came to serve. Churches throughout mission history built schools, orphanages, soup kitchens amongst many others to serve their community. To balance all our roles and identities as a growing church, a natural progression for churches would have been to prioritize building house church first, then proceed to missions, then helping other ministries. However, despite ANF being a young church, God has given ANF a lot of grace to be able to do all of these together in a short time and we are still constantly trying to grow.
One thing ANF started to do to help others is Thanksgiving offering. When it was first implemented 3 years ago, we had 46 people participate to raise $18,000 to help the poor and needy. Last year, 45 singles and families raised $24,000. This year, 50 singles and families raised $32,000 for the broken, poor, and afflicted in society. Although we are lacking in many ways, we should be proud of our church in this aspect.
This upcoming year, we want to start something new through the Sharing Room. The vision for the sharing room is to share what we have with others who are in need. Acts 2:42-47 showed how the lifestyle of early Christians was radically different from people in their society. How can we enact changes so that others can be inspired? We can see other examples of early Christians having radical lifestyle differences from society in the way that they gave, served others, and were content with what they had.
Act 4:32-37, Luke 12:13-34
These passages are radical and challenging. We do not have to do exactly what they did in these passages as they lived separately from society after selling their possessions. Yet, our intentions are not to isolate ourselves from society but to go deeper and make disciples there.
To put this into practice, we need to learn Biblical principles.
Life does not consist in abundance of our possession. We do not need to try to have more. We can be content in abundance and poverty. Early Christians were content with what they had enough to sell all their properties to share amongst their communities. Similarly, we should be content with what we have.
We should share what we have with people in need. It’s not about how much we have but how we use what we have.
We should not be anxious. We need to trust in God and not be anxious. We need to trust that God will provide. Regardless of what we eat or what we wear, God is called “Jehovah Jireh”, the God who provides. When God provides, we can be glad to share our possessions with others.
This is why we want to start the Sharing Room. Think about what we have, but don’t necessarily need or use. These are things that can be given to bless others. We want to experience how God can bless our and other lives more.
Reflection Questions:
What was your main takeaway from today’s message?
Is there anything that you feel you can share with or give to others?
