Stone Speak A symposium on worship, arts and the prophetic,
here and across the pond...

I was recently prompted to consider what the five most significant challenges facing the church today are.  After considering this for quite some time, I believe I have arrived at how I feel at this time.
We Christians must discover our individual identity in Christ.

“As Wesley emphasized, the image of God is restored within us. If the leading edge of the gospel is that ‘we matter to God,’ the ‘trailing edge’ of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has come to make it possible for each of us to become, in this life, the people we were born to be, conceived to be, and deeply within us have always wanted to be.” (Hunter, 52)

It seems odd that this is a challenge facing the Church. The reality is that we have largely become a religion of people who have become very good church members, instead of becoming very good Christians. This is not to say that there are not people, or even congregations who have become both. This said, it has been my observation that more often than not, the trend is that there is a profound disconnect between the life being declared on Sunday mornings, and the life being lived. This has led to the common perception of Christians being hypocrites.
Hypocracy has been used, and to an extent, abused when targeted toward Christians. There are common accusations of this double standard-living that stem from the cultural opposition to accountability or universal acceptance, and these are debatable in validity. The hypocrisy that Christians must learn to overcome is the temptation to live a complaisant, apathetic faith instead of a compassionate, apostolic faith. The radical life that Christ calls us to live is one of boldness. In God’s ultimate plan, through the workings of prevenient grace, and through the careful attention to the calling of the Spirit, each and every one of us has an identity we are to stand up and respond to in the Kingdom.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." Luke 9:23-26

We the body must work together.

“Churches differ in which … populations they “target.” Many growing churches effectively target unchurched Christians – people who believe but do not belong. Many “renewal” oriented churches show less “numerical growth” than “Kingdom growth” because they target churched non-Christians – helping nominal church members experience reconciliation with God and become genuine disciples. (Hunter, 26)

Many times, it seems as if a churches greatest critical opposition comes from the church up the street. I hear of camp meetings that warn of the Calvinist epidemic consuming America. There are hateful things spoken of Orthodoxy and how they only care about ceremony, and there is uninformed hype surrounding churches that are described simply as experientialists. There is an unfortunate amount of tearing down of churches by other churches, and this is not unnoticed by non-Christians.
There is a level of healthiness for the Kingdom in having a wide variety of denominations and forms of worship. They all have their distinct atmosphere that can be an effective witness to individuals that may be turned off by other atmospheres. While this level of superficial personal preference will need to leave an individual at some point during their path toward authentic worship, it can be healthy from an evangelistic perspective.
The danger is that we make enemies within our own faith instead of rallying as the greater Church toward the mission and calling that God has placed on any healthy congregation. Becoming the bigger man, setting aside the “but they believe…” and living in peace with one another is important. It is likely that a day will not come where all churches suddenly work happily in unison, but not tearing each other down or dismissing them as not being authentic worshipers is essential and must come to an end if the Church is to continue to thrive in our time.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1-6

We must appropriately leave our buildings and seek the lost.

… many believers confuse biblical word pictures, and this leads to unintended results. For example, one could say that holinessi s a call to heart purity and to be “set apart” for acts of spiritual service. However, this imagery is often confused to mean “come apart,’ thus encouraging the isolation of the church from the world. Such a confusion can cause the church to see itself as a fortress, a refuge from the dangers of a sinful world. (Sweet, 86)

It is safe to stay inside. It is comfortable, to stay inside. It is easy, to stay inside.
We live in a fallen world and this can often lead to messy evangelistic situations. These truths have led to many churches falling into one of three responses.
The first is, we do not leave our doors and wait until someone is willing and open to the Lord to walk in. This is safe, and easy.
The Second approach is one of exstreme boldness by entering into the world, standing on street corners with a bible, bullhorn and signs, boldly declaring the gospel truths. This is abrasive, and often does more harm than good.
The final is to stand around and conversationally talk about what is happening at church, but never turn the table and ask what another person believes.  This approach is easy to feel missional while doing, but rarely leads to actually influencing another person to be reflective in their own life.
The thing about all of these methods of outreach is, they are all incomplete. They lack boldness out of the desire for holiness. They lack compassion or love, out of the desire for boldness. They lack discipleship, out of the desire for love and compassion.
As the church body, we need to try to generate good press. We need to spend more hours in the week ministering to the community than we do hiding within the safe fortress of our church buildings. If the Church does not begin immersing ourselves in the community, carrying with it the uncompromised word of God with it by way of genuine love and gentleness, then our churches will die and our missions will fail.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

We must assess what are the core beliefs of Christianity, and make sure to prioritize the teaching of those over guidelines stemmed from wisdom.

In seeking to communicate the core of the gospel among people who have little or no knowledge of who Jesus is or of the biblical stories and concepts, much more time and patientce is required. The same missionary principles must be applied in a Western Context as in other parts of the world, whether pre-Christian or post-Christian. In both scenarios, a great number of misconceptions may need to be cleared away in order for the message to be heard. (Gibbs, 207)

We live in a culture with a rapidly increasing illiteracy rate. With Christians not being immune to this intellectual epidemic, the wisdom in assuming that members of our churches will know the Biblical narrative from their own devotional time is becoming questionable in its wisdom. It is unfortunate that this is a truth we must begin to contend with, but it does not mean the death of Christianity is on the horizon. For nearly 1900 years of Christian history, illiteracy was common place in the regions of the world where it thrived. For these  centuries, people still knew the Biblical narrative through the use of iconography and oral tradition.
While we live in a new era with advanced technology, it would be foolish for us to ignore the need to recognize the likelihood of the majority of our congregations reading their Bibles on their own time. We must therefore respond in ways that may differ from congregation to congregation in order to ensure core knowledge.
It is helpful, when teaching people toward a life of holiness, to teach lessons that give guidelines that come from wisdom. It is also good to teach conceptual, topical messages about day to day living. It is essential, however, that if we are to expect the Church to carry out the call of the Priesthood of all believers, that we offer lessons that teach the Biblical narrative. How are we to expect people to deliver their testimonies and explain who Jesus was if we never tell his story start to finish? Above all this, we must also ensure that before we address culturally focused topics, that people within our faith understand and are dedicated to core Christian beliefs. These can be summed up within the Apostles creed.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Philippians 1:9-10

We must train others into the priesthood of all believers.

The New Testament idea of “priest” has so radically departed from the Old Testament that the entire body of believers is now described as by nature a priesthood. . (Gibbs, 88)

There is a widespread attitude among Christians that the majority of the priestly duties fall on the pastor, staff, and perhaps deacons of the local church. This attitude is a symptom of a lack of ownership of identity among Christians. I believe that a serious concern and challenge for the church today is to minimize the perceived gap between laymen and leaders. To raise up the priestly nature, and the authority of those who declare Christ as Lord who are among our churches. To encourage them to visit the sick with an authority and compassion that is equal to the presence of anyone else.
This priesthood is the fruit of finding one’s identity in Christ, of cooperating with others, of leaving the buildings and carrying with us the basic core that Christ laid out for us. This priesthood is God’s destiny for all who proclaim his name.

9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests,* a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 9

Works Consulted

Acts 2:42 "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."


In this post, I will address the third part of Acts 2:42: "They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread" When looking at this statement, we must look at it in 2 parts. First, breaking bread is symbolic of sharing a meal together. Secondly, breaking bread is symbolic of communion. As we have been looking at what it takes to sustain a revival that will last an entire generation, we see a significant theme. This theme is the importance of intimacy. As we talk about breaking bread, I really want to drive home the importance of intimacy.


Intimacy can be defined as a close association with, detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a person, place, or subject. How do we gain detailed knowledge or deep understanding? We do this by spending time with a certain person or in a certain place. We can also study subjects to gain knowledge and understanding. The main theme in defining intimacy as we see here, is spending time with who or what we are trying to know and understand. As we spend time with each other, we begin to know and understand each other on new levels.


In the buisiness of our everyday life, how do we find time to get to know and understand each other? The answer is quite simple. Slow down and make time for each other. One of the best ways to make time for each other is by sharing a meal together. Sharing a meal invites people into our home. When we are in our home, our defenses come down and we tend to open up who we truly are to each other. Conversations during the meal provide opportunities to bond, plan, connect, and learn from one another. Meals provide an atmosphere of warmth, security and love, as well as feelings of belonging. When we feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves, we become free to open up, explore, and become who the Lord has called us to be.

Exploring, with each other, who the Lord has called us to be is where the concept of communion comes into play. Communion can be defined in two ways. First, communion is an act of remembering what Jesus did for us and our connection with Him. When we accept Jesus, we come into communion with Him.

Matthew 26:26-29 says, "While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."


Secondly, the word communion comes from the words common and union. Merriam-Webster defines communion as mutual participation; an act or instance of sharing; intimate fellowship or rapport; and, having a common faith and discipline. When we come into communion with each other, we share a common ground and are able to strengthen, encourage, and help each other become who we are called to be.


In my next post, I will be addressing the final point of Acts 2:42 – the importance of prayer.

Acts 2:42 says, "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

In this post, I will address the second part of Acts 2:42: "They devoted themselves to fellowship." When thinking about being in fellowship, it is easy to say, "Yes, I am in fellowship. I go to church every Sunday." This is an easy trap to fall into. Before too long, going to church every Sunday becomes a routine. It is easy to go to church, say hello to a couple of people, listen to a couple of worship songs, sit through a message, and then go home. Before too long, we realize our life has no real substance. This is where the enemy steps in and easily convinces us that "church just isn't my thing anymore."

Why is this trap so easy to fall into? The answer is simple. Just showing up for church every Sunday is not true fellowship. There is so much more to fellowship than that. We are called to be in communion with God and man. Genesis 2 says that it is not good for man to be alone. You cannot have true fellowship when you are alone.

Fellowship can be defined as a partnership or a relationship. Both of these definitions can be broken into two words. The first part of each word, either partner or relation, speaks of more than one person being in community with each other. In the second part of each word, we see ship. A ship is a vessel to go from one point to another. When we join the two parts of these words, what we see is two or more people joined in community moving from one place to another.

Donald Miller says this about fellowship, “One of the things that fellowship does is it shows us that we are addicted to ourselves. Our own space; our own time; our own money. We realize that most of the time our mind is like a radio that’s stuck on one station. On us. In real fellowship
dialogue takes place where we actually take the time to sit down and tune our radio to another person’s station.”

As we "tune our radio to another person’s station,” we not only support each other, but we can also challenge each other. As we challenge each other, we grow. Some outward evidence of being in true fellowship is visible growth and maturity in our mental, emotional, and spiritual life.

Fellowship is not just being together, it is doing together. When Jesus left the apostles, He said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses." He instructed us to not only be together, but to go out and do what He did. As we step out in faith, doing what He did, our community supports us. Signs, wonders, and miracles become the norm while we see the Kingdom of Heaven expand when we step out in faith. As we see in the Psalms, fellowship is an inner unity that is expressed outwardly:

Psalm 133 says, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing-- life forever."

In my next post, I will be addressing the next point of Acts 2:42 – the importance of breaking bread with each other.

Acts 2:42 "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

In this post, I want to address the first part of Acts 2:42 – "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching." What exactly does this mean in context of maintaining a revival? I believe that this phrase is talking about listening to what God is saying as well as doing what He is telling us to do. When we position ourselves to hear what God is talking to us about, it allows Him to move through us. Jesus said that He only did what He saw the Father doing. He also told us that we would be able to do what He did, and that we would do greater things.

It is crucial that we understand the importance of taking time to listen to what God is communicating to us. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." In this reference, the word delight is talking about us aligning our will with His will. In other words, positioning ourselves to listen to what God is saying to us, and doing those things as well. Through this process, we create intimacy with the Father, and His desires become our desires. This is what enables us to move in the signs, wonders, and miracles that we are called to walk in. As we move in these signs, wonders, and miracles, the flame for revival is sparked.

Revival comes from a place of intimacy with God. Intimacy occurs when we pursue a relationship with Him. The awesome thing that happens when we pursue a relationship with Him, is that He in turn pursues us. The relationship that is being formed here becomes the ground that we cultivate in order to grow in intimacy.

Let's look for a minute at the word relationship. First we have the word relation. Relation means two or more people who interact with each other. The second word we have is ship. A ship is a vessel that carries something from one place to another. So when the two words are joined, we see that relationship means: Two or more people joined together to get from one place to another. In this case, it is God and us joined together to get to a place of revival. The wind behind the ship’s sail is intimacy.

When we have intimacy in our relationships, we are able to share the deepest things of our heart with each other. It is God's desire to be in this place of intimacy with us. He desires to share His heart with us. As God shares His heart with us, we experience Him in new ways and our understanding of Him grows deeper. I like the way Kevin Dedmon puts it: "God wants us to have an encounter, so that we become an encounter, so that others can have an encounter. It is only as we encounter His presence in profound ways that we become a habitation of His presence, so that wherever we go, we naturally leak what is inside of us, so that the environment around us is affected by His presence within us."

The ultimate goal in revival is to saturate the environment around us with His presence to the point that not only we change, but the environment around us changes. As we devote ourselves to hearing what God is saying to us, and doing what He tells us to do, we become the catalyst for change, and we help spark the flame of revival. As the flame for revival is sparked, it is essential that we are connected to fellow believers. In my next post, I will be addressing the second part of Acts 2:42 – “They devoted themselves to fellowship."

Acts 2:1-4 says, "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance."

Can you imagine this scene? People saying, "Wow, what just happened? That was awesome! I want more of that!" Can you imagine the feelings behind the tongues of fire? The excitement of the people! The passion and drive they must have had to spread that fire to everyone! This is one video that I would love to watch.

I think about the wildfires in California. Once the first spark ignites, the fires burn out of control. As the fires spread, they literally take out hundreds of acres at a time. As they move through an area, they leave that place completely changed. In the same way, when the spark of revival ignites in a believer, there is no end to what can be accomplished.

All through the book of Acts it talks about the apostles constantly being touched by the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit touches them, they are given boldness to preach the good news of Jesus and to move in signs, wonders, and miracles. As the apostles stepped out in this boldness, many people were constantly being added to their numbers.

Is this still possible today? Yes, this is not only possible today, but it was a command of Jesus. In Mark 16:15-18, Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." As we see through the book of Acts, this is what the apostles did, and it became a revival that lasted an entire generation.

I believe that God is ready to release another revival that will last an entire generation. He is looking for people who will say, "Here I am Lord, use me!" He is desperate for people who are desperate for Him. In this place of desperation, God is going to spark the flame of revival, and we must be ready to carry that flame. 

Out of desperation, Acts 1:14 says that, the apostles were "of one mind continually devoting themselves to prayer." The fact that they were of one mind is important to note because it is showing the importance of being unified in vision. This unity of vision is important because one person can start a fire, but it takes a unison of people to spread the fire.

Before Jesus was taken back up into Heaven, He said that the apostles would be baptized with the Holy Spirit, receive power, and were to be His witnesses to the whole world. I believe that the prayers the apostles were devoting themselves to, were focused towards asking Jesus for direction, and for Him to fill them with the boldness and power that He spoke to them about. As the disciples began moving in unity with each other and devoting themselves to seeking God's will, they began moving in this power.

As the apostles began moving in this power and were continually seeking Him, God sparked the flame of revival and the early church was born. There were many signs, wonders, and miracles taking place at this time. I believe that this was due to the fact that in unity they were continuing to seek God's heart. This is what fueled the fire of a revival that lasted an entire generation.

In reflection of the first few years of this revival, and what they were doing to get to this point, Acts 2:42 says that the people "were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." This passage reveals four main points: 1) the apostles' teaching; 2) fellowship; 3) the breaking of bread; and 4) prayer. In my next four posts, I will be addressing these four points in more detail. I believe that these points are crucial to understand and to embrace in these days. I believe that God is going to spark the flame of revival and we need to be ready for this. Like Brian Johnson says, "We are a revival generation!"