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Acts 24:14-16
[14] But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the
God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:

[15] And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.

[16] And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void to offence toward God, and toward men.

How would you answer this phrase, "I like church, except..……….."?
Over time, what have been those "exceptions" in your life? Some have said when they were young the service was boring. It was too quiet-you could hear a pin drop. In attending other churches other "exceptions" have entered the picture. "I like church, BUT I find some churches irrelevant." Or, "I like church, BUT people lack passion for God and for making his word known to others." In other churches, the issue was money. In others, they had turned inward and focused on themselves too much. In other churches, Christian people are too critical and are very unloving.

What has been your experience. You like church and you love the Lord, HOWEVER ...." What are some of those "EXCEPTIONS"? If I were to draw a picture of the perfect church, what would it look like? What is the church of your dreams? Perhaps the real question is, "What type of church does God dream about? What type of church does God desire?"

Trends Related to Churches (Barna Research)

His statistics showed that less than one out of every five(less than 20%) Protestant churches deem ministry to families or to children to be among the top priorities of the church.

Prayer, he pointed out, is labeled one of the top priorities by less than one out of every 25 churches!

He also stated that even though churches build their primary weekly event around the concept of worship, and call the event a "worship service," less than one out of every five churches rated worship to be a top ministry priority, and that most of those in attendance say they did not experience the presence of God during the service.

Less than one out of every ten church attenders spends any time during a typical week worshiping God, other than when they are at a church service."

Pressed for insight as to why it is that establishing these factors as a low priority is problematic, Barna replied, "because families are meant to be the faith-center of each individual's life, children are the most important and impressionable individuals we could possibly reach with the good news of salvation and the substance of a Spirit-led, Scripture based spiritual life, and you cannot have a meaningful and dynamic relationship with the living God unless worship and prayer are at the center of that relationship. For churches to get so wrapped up in other matters suggests that we have lost sight of the end goal, which is not filling new buildings with happy people but filling sin-stained hearts with the forgiveness and power of Jesus Christ, and how that power then transforms the individual's entire understanding of the meaning of life."

Another pattern discovered by Barna in 2005 relates to the faith path of the young adult generations (the Baby Busters and the Mosaics). "Overall, they are interested in matters of faith, but they have few assumptions about what a life of faith must entail. They are leaders in the pursuit of new models of faith experience and expression, such as house churches, cyberchurches and marketplace experiences. He predicted that within the next five years young adults will boldly introduce a blizzard of unique expressions of faith that will cause heightened tension with the older generations of believers.

Barna said he hopes that devoted Christians throughout the country will look upon 2005 as a year in which the challenges they faced motivated them to reconsider the meaning of their life and faith, and to establish a deeper commitment to loving, obeying and serving God. "That's why we exist," he suggested, " and everything that draws us toward other purposes or outcomes is simply a distraction. May 2006 be a year of focus on the things that bring pleasure to God and provide genuine meaning for our lives."

What's God's vision for his church? Not my vision or your vision but God's vision for his church. What is God's vision for Riverside Apostolic Church?

Acts 11: 19-30…………………………A N T I O C H

Historically, Antioch was the third largest city in the known world at that time. It was extremely secular, but it was also extremely religious. They had a lot of churches. There was the church of men, a Greek deity, the church of Astart, the church of Artemis. A lot of people were going to a lot of churches. The culture, however, was very immoral and very worldly. In spite of a missionary's worst nightmare going to a foreign culture that was extremely anti-God, within 40 years the Christian church became the dominant force in the culture, so much so that the center of Christianity moved from Jerusalem to Antioch. How is that possible?

How could they capture the heart of the community like that?

It would be like Riverside converting the entire city of Morgantown within 40 years, so much so that it becomes the dominant force in the society and the city.

What did this church do to capture people's hearts and attention? The first thing they did was that they could not keep their mouths shut about Jesus. In fact, the word "Christian" was coined at Antioch because these people could not keep quiet about this "Christos." In vs. 19, it says that these people came from Jerusalem which was under severe persecution. They lost everything. They had to move from their homes because of their beliefs and their profession in Jesus Christ. They lost their jobs and incomes, they had to leave their friends and the community of which they had been a part for such a long time. Under that intense pressure, you would think that they would learn to shut their mouths, that they would be afraid to tell other people what God had done for them. Yet, they didn't.

They couldn't keep quiet.

I haven't been forced out of my home and lost my possessions. So often, we keep quiet about our faith. Why am we so afraid to tell people what God has done for us when it doesn't cost us anything. For those for whom it cost everything, they still couldn't keep quiet about him. That's a challenge.

The myths in our culture are that people don't really want to hear about Christianity. People are satisfied with their lives. They have everything and they don't need the Lord in their lives. They have another religion, and they don't need us to convert them. When I look at the church in Antioch, they always professed Jesus Christ. Throughout the history of the church, people have discovered that they need him. People have listened and they will listen. People have responded and they will respond. They responded in Antioch in great numbers, and every time the church caught fire and talked about their faith, people began to listen.

I think the key for us to capture our community is simply to say that the myths in our heads are a lie because they are. People cannot respond unless we talk about our faith with others.

Another observation about this text is who shared the faith? It wasn't the professional evangelists. It was simple, average Christians who shared in their workplaces and in their lives about what God had done for them, and people listened. They went outside the four walls of the church and talked not to religious Jews, but to irreligious people, people who were apart from God. That's our challenge. If we want to capture the heart of the community, we need the conviction that these people had. That conviction is that people need Jesus Christ.