{"id":3082,"date":"2011-05-11T12:34:22","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T17:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2011-05-11T12:34:22","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T17:34:22","slug":"are-you-an-acts-2-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2011\/05\/11\/are-you-an-acts-2-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You an Acts 2 Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If I\u2019ve heard it once, I\u2019ve heard it a thousand times: some erstwhile young church planter says to me, \u201cI\u2019m really looking to plant an Acts 2 church.\u201d\u00a0 Usually, they\u2019re moving to Seattle-the-most-unchurched-city-in-America-actually-closer-to-Europe-than-to-anywhere-in-the-U.S.\u00a0 My retort is always the same: \u201cYeah, that lasted about five verses; then God started killing the liars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, that wonderful little passage at the end of Acts 2 comes up in the lectionary this week.\u00a0 Russell Rathbun<\/a>, curator of The Hardest Question<\/a>, a lectionary blog, has a great post<\/a> on this passage, in which he questions our assumptions about the Utopian Church:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sixty seven million hits on a Google search for \u201cActs 2 Church\u201d can\u2019t be wrong\u2014that\u2019s over a million entries for every verse. There are Baptist, United Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal<\/a>, Pietiest, Mennonite and no end of independent and evangelical congregations that go by the name Acts 2 Church. There are the \u201cActs 2 Network,\u201d \u201cHow to Be an Acts 2 Church,\u201d \u201cBuilding an Acts 2 Church,\u201d the \u201cActs 2 Process\u201d\u2014plus, like a million other attempts at incarnating, reviving or re-establishing the original.<\/p>\n

The curious thing is, the author of the Acts of the Apostles never mentions it again. The Utopian Church does not seem to serve as a model as the faith is expanded. Acts famously begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome, where according to Eusebius it builds structures and hierarchies until it becomes something that fits in nicely with the Roman Empire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

via The Hardest Question: The Utopian Church<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I\u2019ve heard it once, I\u2019ve heard it a thousand times: some erstwhile young church planter says to me, \u201cI\u2019m really looking to plant an Acts 2 church.\u201d\u00a0 Usually, they\u2019re moving to Seattle-the-most-unchurched-city-in-America-actually-closer-to-Europe-than-to-anywhere-in-the-U.S.\u00a0 My retort is always the same: \u201cYeah, that lasted about five verses; then God started killing the liars.\u201d Well, that wonderful little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8],"tags":[48,390,555,622],"class_list":["post-3082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-church","category-church-history","tag-acts","tag-lectionary","tag-russell-rathbun","tag-the-hardest-question"],"yoast_head":"\nAre You an Acts 2 Church?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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