A dialogue between Jesus and a woman of Samaria is recorded in John 4:20 “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 4:21 Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. 4:33 You worship that which you know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 4:33 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such the Father seeks to be his worshippers. 4:34 God is a Spirit: and they who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” This flew in the face of the ancient practices of worshipping God. Unfortunately, this practice still goes on today. Supposed Christians live the lives THEY want to live for 166 hours out of the week, then “go to church” for 2 hours on Sunday and call it worship. The only occurrence in scripture where you will find “worship service” is in Romans where Paul admonishes the Romans to offer up their bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your spiritual service of worship. This just described a 168 hour week of worship service?
While worship goes on at a Sunday morning gathering, we don’t delude ourselves into thinking that this is the exclusive time during the week that we worship. What is peculiar about the 1st day of the week is that we gather together as we have the examples in the New Covenant writings. What is also peculiar is that those of us who assemble do not assemble because of duress or a requirement mentality. We gather because we recognize the individual and mutual benefits from gathering as did the early Christians. This is counter-intuitive with most religious gatherings these days. You will also notice that we always have maximum attendance of our members without reminding or hounding them. If someone becomes delinquent in his or her attendance, there is usually something going on in his or her life which needs to be addressed first. A mindset of mandatory attendance for a soul’s salvation does not solve a soul’s problem. The soul must be right with God – attendance will then be the natural effect. We live our lives as Christian soldiers on the front lines six days a week. We are then privileged to be able to return to the rear area (1st day of the week assembly) for spiritual food, encouragement, refreshing and re-arming for preparation of going back out to the front for yet another week.
We recognize that the primary reason for gathering together is to take the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7). “On the first day of the week, the disciples gathered together to break bread…” This is our focus. Through other scriptures, we see that these gatherings included the following practices and results: Singing, praying, edifying, exhorting. While not a formal element during our assembly, a collection from the Christians is also facilitated to provide support for our evangelist. (A practice also with scriptural precedent) and for the eventuality that there would be needy saints who might benefit from such a collection in the future. For the short time we spend together, we do not add or take away from the scriptural examples we find in the New Covenant. With these scattered examples, we attempt to reconstruct a typical 1st century gathering on the 1st day of the week.
Our assembly (ekklesia) is autonomous. The only thing we have in common with other Christians is our relationship to God – not the influence or governance of other local congregations, colleges or organizations. Our assembly is shepherded by Elders who meet the qualifications set forth in 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1.
We support an evangelist full time, but you will not see him heading up a class or assembly all of the time. His primary job is to evangelize (share the good news) with the residents of Yuma and the surrounding areas. He also has a requirement to “teach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and longsuffering.” (II Tim 4) The spiritual care of the flock is primarily the responsibility of the shepherds (Elders) “Feed the flock which is among you.” (I Pet 5)
These are the outward things you will see when we gather. By the grace of God, these are also the attitudes you will see when we gather.
*If you are a Christian (baptized for the remission of sins – Acts 2:38) and have an interest in visiting or joining us, please contact one of us.
*If you are not a Christian and want more information on how to become one – pick up your New Testament and read it. Don’t take any man’s word (to include ours) on what you need to do to be a Christian – then contact one of us if you still have questions.
