Acts 15:13-31: The unfolding, choose-your-own-adventure story

In this blog series, I’m going to take a look at the book of Acts from a strategic point of view. What was going on in the days of the early church and what can we learn from it today in the 21^st Century?

I remember when I was younger I used to read choose-your-own adventure stories. The character would be on a great adventure and you got to work out how the story finished, either for good or for bad. It was exciting to see how your choices made a difference in the story. My favourite book was The Race Forever. You were the driver of an off-road race in Africa. It was exciting as I got to choose how the story would end. Would I win? Usually I did, but that was often after a couple of reads of the book.

In Acts 15, the believers are at their own version of a choose-your-own-adventure story. It’s James, the Lord’s brother, who was the leader assuming responsibility for the decision in the great Council of Jerusalem. Jesus had said, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 18:18). This is the practice utilised in Judaism of "binding" or "loosing" certain passages of Scripture, that is to decide the route when it's not clear which route to go. Jesus promised the early church that when they did this, God would be present in the decision.It's their chooser-your-own-adventure moment, and James needs to get this right. There are two routes he can pick and either would have been in line with Scripture. So just quoting passages wasn’t going to cut it.

The first was was choosing to affirm Mosiac law, demanding that all Gentile believers follow the law and get circumcised. Or they can go the other way, make the load lighter for those who are joining faith.

In church strategy there’s two routes you can take. The first is the tried and tested, well-known way. This is following how the people before you lead. The Christians had a tried and tested method how to teach people how to live: The Mosaic Law. The first route sees Scripture as something static, unmoving, passive.

There’s so many “best practices” and “10 steps to church growth” out there. If you just follow “the rules” you’ll get the right result, right? Well not if you’re going where no-one else had gone, and that was where the new church were going. These rules for church growth are helpful, but they’ll only help you get where others have gone.

The second route was to see Scripture as an unfolding journey, rather than a static set of rules. This view puts them in the story of Scripture, rather than outside of it. They embrace the prophetic tradition rather than the law as their guide. They see the trajectory of Scripture, and embrace the adventure and the new ground it can take them to.

The church in the 21^st Century is in new territory. COVID and the emergence of the postmodern world has launched the church in to a brand new space, and the strategies of the past will not reach the people that we’ve been called to reach. We must find new methods, new means of reaching the world. New strategies that will connect people with the Gospel. We must see Scripture as an unfolding story, from Creation to Moses, to the Prophets, to Jesus to the Church. This is not suggesting that we become progressives in our theology, but rather that we become progressives in our ecclesiology. I set out on this journey to find the strategy in the book of Acts, and the point is that, the strategy of Acts is progressive. The strategy changes depending on the context.

If we are to truly embrace the strategy of Acts, we must embrace untested, untried methods. We must dispense with formulas and embrace principles. The strategy of Acts is a strategy of principles. These principles remain consistent throughout all of the book of Acts, from the Upper Room to the centre of Rome. 

These principles are: Following Spirit’s lead, leveraging technology, Developing Leaders, Seizing Opportunities, and Fighting for Unity.

These principles remain regardless of situation The council of Jerusalem is one of the best test cases of this. At the Council of Jerusalem we see them following the Spirit’s lead by seeing what God has been doing in the churches, they leveraged the technology of the day, the letter, to make changes. They send out leaders that weren’t the apostles. Paul seized the opportunity of this decision, and his impact has had profound effects on the whole world. Of course, the whole point of the council of Jerusalem was to fight for unity within the church, the final principle.

If we are to become churches that make such a profound impact on the world as the early church did, we need to dispense with models and start embracing principles. Principles are applicable whatever the context.

It’s time to realise that there’s no one-way to grow a healthy church. There’s no one way to staff your church, to run your Sunday services or to run your small groups. Instead, we need to realise that some things may work for a time and then need re-working within weeks, months or even years. In the fast-paced world we’re living in, the timescales are only getting shorter.

I remember once hearing about a church that set a 100-year vision. Could people 100 years ago ever imagined the world we live in today? Could you have imagined the world we live in today 10 years ago? I’m writing this in 2022, I could not have imagined this year 1 year ago, let alone 10 or 100.

All models are wrong, but some might be helpful for a time. However, principles-based strategy can last through a pandemic, a cultural shift or even the Roman Empire. These are the strategic principles of the early church, and they can become the strategic principles of your church too.

Too many strategies lack one of these principles. Often, church strategies lack the leading of the Spirit. “Using the God Card” is a well-known phrase in church culture, and it happens when someone wants to pursue their own aims under the thin veneer of spirituality. The problem is, we use this knowledge to make the Holy Spirit redundant. We pray for The Holy Spirit’s approval rather than asking the Holy Spirit what he wants. He becomes like the King or Queen of England, a mere figurehead in the country, signing off on our plans without being given the right to birth plans from the very start.

True early-church strategy was fearlessly Spirit-lead. So much so, that the early church never lists one person as the overall head (sorry Catholics), because the point was that The Holy Spirit was in charge. As my pastor says, we need to spend more time in the throne room than the boardroom. We need to embrace The Holy Spirit as the Senior Pastor of our churches. 

Church strategy has been resistant to technology. COVID propelled the church into utilising the great technology of the day, the internet, but the early church was leveraging technology from the start. Whether the letter, the road, or something else, they were on the forefront of technology.

Many church strategies focus on creating a spectacle, but don’t ever really create leaders. So much so that we see megachurches where the Senior Pastor is preaching virtually every Sunday, but if they get taken out, like in the case of Mars Hill, the whole thing collapses. There is some level of leadership in these churches, but it doesn’t go far enough. The early church were passionate about producing leaders, and they were doing it at an extraordinary pace. When we neglect the training of leaders, we limit our potential to reach new people and create a sustained impact.

Many churches are so focused on themselves that they don’t see the opportunity before them. Even worse, they shy away from the tough conversation because of brand or reputation, they don't want to put their neck on the line for what matters. Too many churches have softened stances on clear areas of morality in an attempt to be inclusive. They don’t see that the culture is demanding a response from us, but we need to be ready to give a response, at a moment’s notice if necessary. Whether is was Peter, Stephen or Paul, they took their moments to seize the opportunities. The great preaches of Acts didn’t happen in church services, they happened during riots, mobs and trials. In our world, there is a mob that’s demanding an answer from us, are we ready?

Finally, some church strategies are all business, but have no interest in unity. I think that the early church leaders would be dismayed with some of the business practices that have made their way into the church. Don’t get me wrong, there are many business practices that are good, but it’s the nature of business that they would have had a problem with. When churches become cut-throat, judgemental, too focused on excellence and unforgiving, we make our churches like the world. I remember hearing a story (whether it’s true or not is another matter) about a famous Pastor who fired his campus pastors for making excuses about not hitting their growth targets. The point of the story was about owning our mistakes, but the picture it painted was one of a church that had become a cut-throat business. This church sounded like it was run by Alan Sugar in The Apprentice.

Jesus said to Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this world – but many of the church strategies that have become popular have done the opposite, they’ve sought to become more like the world, more callous, more cut-throat. That doesn’t mean that the early church was soft either. I call it “Fighting for Unity” because the early church were willing to disagree, even disagree very strongly, to fight for unity. That meant fighting for orthodoxy, fighting for clarity, and fighting for the best way forward, but never in an aim to put themselves first, or make their ministry look good. 

The book of Acts is a great adventure, and it's one where principles lay at the very heart of the strategy. At the council of Jerusalem, James chose the adventure of the unfolding story. It’s time to move to a principles-based strategy in your church.