Let's turn our Bibles to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. And we're going to continue this morning with what we're calling a RBC membership class. And I've explained to you the reasons for doing that, even though most of you have been members for as long as I've been alive. But there's reasons for doing this. I think it's healthy for us as a church to talk about some of these things every so often. and of course we can get it recorded for others in the future. But Acts chapter two, and I want to read at the end of the chapter this wonderful description of the life of the early church. So Acts chapter two, beginning at verse 41, right after Peter's Pentecost sermon. So Acts two and verse 41. This is the word of God. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. and all that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Amen. Well, there's a couple things in that reading that might sound a little dissonant to us. We think about the signs and the wonders done by the apostles, and we understand that in these days before scripture was completed, that there were those confirmation signs done by God's messengers, but now a completed scripture supersedes that, and there's no more need for confirming signs. The signs of the apostles died out with the apostles, and there being no more apostles, there's no more signs and wonders to confirm the message. And then there's the notion of everyone selling their possessions. And I'll just remind you that later on in Acts, we find out that that is not some sort of enforced communism or socialism or something. It was completely voluntary. It was not compulsory. You remember in the Ananias and Sapphira account in a couple chapters, Peter told Ananias and Sapphira, while it was your own, you could have done with it what you wanted, right? So this was not a compulsory, if you're a member of the church, then you have to divest your possessions or something like that at all. It was completely voluntary. And of course, there was a self-correction along the way. When you had that Ananias and Sapphira hypocrisy, things probably changed a little bit after that. But still, it's a beautiful picture of the togetherness of the early church, of their shared life together, of the Lord's working in their midst there at the end of Acts 2. And so, this morning, what we want to do, talking about our church's philosophy of ministry, is talk about fellowship and the way that we do things outside of the Lord's day here. And so, let's seek the Lord together and ask for his favor. Now, let's pray. Our gracious Father in heaven, we thank thee for our church family and pray that you would grow us together, that we might be a holy habitation for the Lord. We marvel at the way that the sovereign builder of the church takes living stones and how he perfectly assembles them together to be a holy temple to the Lord. And we ask that we would grow. not only individually but grow together and that we would experience more of New Testament fellowship and that you would bless our church and that you would keep us from some of the errors that we feel are being pursued in modern Christianity. We pray that we would be faithful to you and that you would bless our labors for the kingdom. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so this is our third time in this general category of ministry philosophy. This is really what makes up the culture of a church, and so we're spending some time with this. So we talked the first week in ministry philosophy about our worship services, and I suppose the bottom line there is just we want our scripture, worship services to be saturated with the word of God, that worship is always responsive, it's reflexive, God speaks and we respond and so our worship services are dominated by the word and the height of our worship service, the pinnacle is the preaching. It's not as if we worship and then we get that done and then we hear the word preached. But the act of preaching and listening to preaching with a yielded heart is the supreme act of worship. And you can even see that, you've been taught this before, you can see that in church architecture, can't you? You can see the influence of the Protestant Reformation. Prior to the Reformation and still, when it comes to churches and Romanism, what is the central point of view in a sanctuary? What catches your eye first? It's the altar, because in that system, the height of worship is the Eucharist, it's the mass. And so, the altar is what is front and center. And when they come to the Reformation time, what becomes front and center in a sanctuary? It's a pulpit, right in the middle, elevated, because that is the central act of worship. And so we talked about that a couple, almost six weeks ago now, I guess. And then we did another week very generally on music. And it wasn't really a time for us to go through and prove from scripture all these things and to really be thorough. But I did throw out five or six principles that guide our music philosophy here and lead us to the position where we are. And so, I remind you of those five guiding parameters. Our music must be theologically accurate, but also musically appropriate. It must be distinctive. It must be modest in that it's not calling attention to self, but reflecting all glory to the Lord. And we want a congregational emphasis in our music. It's not performative. It's not a spectator sport. We want a congregational emphasis. That's why we print the words in the order of worship. I hope you make use of that, you know, so from the offertory is being played, you can look at the words there. Perhaps when the prelude is being played, you can think of the hymn and you can look in the back of the Trinity hymnal at the table of contents and you can follow along with the words of the prelude. We want worship, our music here to be congregational. All right, so this morning, What I want to talk about is what we do when it comes to church gatherings other than the Lord's Day. And it may be that our church approaches things like fellowship and church programming differently than what you're used to, what you're used to seeing and experiencing in a former assembly, or what you see out there in the church landscape of what your friends and your relatives who are believers and in churches have in their churches. So again, why do we do what we do when it comes to church fellowship? And probably there are three main differences, and we'll eventually get to these, but I would assume that the three main differences between the way that we do things and the way that they're done perhaps elsewhere and your experience would be our approach to youth ministry. That would be a difference. And then our just lack of programming and of, you know, organized things that we're doing like that. And then our just, I don't know what else to call it, but a minimalistic approach to fellowships in general. And so, you know, maybe why is that? And so let's just kind of talk out some of these things when it comes to fellowship. We just read in Acts 2 42 that the Christians continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship. And the New Testament has a lot to say about fellowship in the church. But of course, when the New Testament talks about fellowship, it's not talking about covered dish meals, right? It's just, that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is, the word for fellowship has to do with having things in common. It has to do with sharing. So the shared life of a church family. A church is supposed to be a family drawn together out of the world who, like a family, shares life together, right? That's New Testament fellowship, sharing life together like a family. And you know how the family is the primary metaphor in the New Testament for believers, right? We're brothers and sisters. God is our father and that family metaphor is all pervasive in the New Testament. Ideally, church fellowship then would happen organically and it wouldn't need even to be planned or on a calendar or anything, it would just be organic. It would just happen because we've been drawn out of the world together into this church family and we have the indwelling spirit and we're united to Christ. You know, but, you know, there are things about our culture that work against us when it comes to our shared life. There is the hyper-individualism of American society. There is the fact that we live distances away from one another in an era where transportation is by car, so we live 30, 40 minutes away from each other, you know, 34 minutes away from church, let alone each other. Some of you live an hour from each other if you were to go to each other's homes. So, there's that issue there. So, there's, of course, the busyness of our culture and all the modern technological advances that are supposed to be making things easier, but actually make things busier. And there's, you know, there's a lot working against us. So we, so churches do have to be intentional when it comes to life together, when it talks about when it, when shared family life. So, so we are, we're, we're intentional about that. And I would say that the primary fellowship meeting that we have in our church family is the midweek prayer service. I mean, that is 52 fellowships a year, the midweek prayer service. I mean, what is a better, what is a better example of shared life together than a church family assembling together, sharing requests, and then breaking up into little groups of three or four, and for a half an hour praying with one another. And then typically what happens after that is those little groups linger, conversations happen, 20-30 minutes goes by, and so Every week, we have this opportunity for life together, for fellowship. It looks a little bit different in the morning because of the Zoom platform. We know we can't break up into little groups. I actually toyed with that early on. You know, there is a way to do breakout rooms in Zoom and that kind of thing, but it just gets too complicated. So in the morning prayer meeting that we have on Zoom, for those who can't get out at night because of the darkness, and that sort of thing, and the temperatures in the wintertime. So we have that available, and the men pray, lead in prayer, but still we have the time of sharing requests and conversation. Some of us linger. Most people kind of leave pretty quick after the end of the prayer meeting. It's fine, they gotta get lunch or whatever. Some of us linger and talk. I know a lot of times I leave before everybody else is done, and I leave somebody else. I'm in charge, usually Don and Grace Benckendorf are the last ones off the prayer meeting, and I leave Mr. Benckendorf in charge, make him the host of the prayer meeting, and then I sign off. But that is the primary fellowship meeting that we have. It's the midweek prayer service, the midweek prayer service. And I think that you will have a difficult time really coming in to the shared life of this church if you're not regular in that. So, this is not some sort of, you know, ball and chain, you know, if you don't do this, you're not spiritual, you're not a Christian, I mean, that kind of nonsense. Of course, it's not that at all. Think of it just as a privilege. to be able to have shared life together with our church family. There are a lot of people in our world that are just craving community because of the breakdown of our society into individualistic, atomistic kind of elements, and this is the best way. So we do have 52 fellowship meetings a year, and it is the midweek prayer service on Wednesdays, 11 and at seven. But we do have planned gatherings beyond the regular rhythm of our week. But compared to other churches, they really are less, there's less of them. probably than what you're used to in another fellowship or whatever. So let's talk about that element. So, you know, we're having a fellowship meal today. We have these a couple times a year. We'll have a Saturday evening fellowship a couple times a year with the church picnic. But really, you know, there's not a lot. And so here's some of the thinking behind that. Part of the answer to that is the uniqueness of our ministry when it comes to the Christian school. So the Christian school does impact things here. And we have this dynamic in our church congregation, and you can see this as a pro or a con, but this is the dynamic. The dynamic is that roughly half of the congregation is involved on a daily basis here on campus in the school ministry. And they're working eight hours a day with fellow believers. So that half of the congregation does not have the same craving for Christian fellowship that the other half does. You understand that, right? You understand that. And with the way that the school calendar gets so full and the life of the Christian school takes on a life of its own, especially when you get into the spring months, once you get past the first couple weeks of March, it is downhill fast and you can hardly breathe. And that does impact our life together. It impacts our calendar. When we're planning things, we're planning them around things that are already on the calendar with the school that are planned a year in advance. So that is part of the reason. And that's just unique to our ministry. But we have this great privilege of having the Christian school here. I mean, you think about the impact that our little congregation is making in Hartford County, Maryland. You know, it's immeasurable. And, you know, here we are, this little congregation compared to so many other, you know, churches. But the impact that we're making with these 560 students and their families over the course of 55 plus years, it really is a privilege. And there are no unmixed blessings in a fallen world. And so maybe you see that as a con. if you're not a part of the school, and therefore it impacts church life, but there are plenty of pros about the school as well, and they certainly outweigh the couple cons that there are. So there is that. There is this thought as well, you know, when we're going back to, okay, so why do we have so few fellowships? Why the minimalistic approach? There is the thought as well that the regular meetings are not being maximized. We have 52 fellowship meetings a year when it comes to the midweek prayer services, but they're not being maximized. So if you've got 52 planned, but only 20 or so are coming, then why do others? So there's that, right? The regular ones are not being maximized. If they were maximized, then we would plan more, but they're not being maximized. So there's that. And then the large share of this answer too is just what we see out there going on in modern Christianity that the church has really just become a social club. And it can't become that. It can't become that. The church does not exist just to offer a variety of activities to keep its members busy and connected and happy. The church exists to conspicuously display the truth to a watching world, like we talked about the very first time we were in this series. And the mission of the church is a spiritual mission. It does not exist to provide mere activity. It does not exist for entertainment. I firmly believe that churches do not exist for softball leagues or for day trips to amusement parks or to baseball games. What has that to do with the mission of the church? What has that to do? And so, the fellowship that the church is called to promote is fellowship in the truth and shared life together, which is mutually edifying. It's not just activity. It's not just social interaction for the sake of social interaction, right? There are other organizations that can accomplish those things. And they're fine, you can do those. But the church has a more narrow specific purpose to it. And so we really want to work against the idea of the church just becoming an uber busy social club full of activity. Spiritual growth does not occur merely when believers are enjoying activities together. Fellowships need to be fostering edifying conversations. Revealed truth needs to be being expounded at the fellowship. We recognize that fellowship should ideally be spontaneous among the members. And so we don't want to overload the calendar in such a way so that families are hindered from the spontaneous kind of fellowship that ought to be in our lives. The offering of hospitality, the going to people's homes, right? That kind of organic, spontaneous fellowship is a whole lot better than the top-down, put it on the calendar type fellowship. And so we don't want to overload the calendar and the, busyness of the families of our ministry so that we hinder the spontaneous, organic kind of fellowship. That's part of our thinking as well. And we certainly don't want to hinder the regular rhythm of our week. So we have the regular rhythm of the four times that we're together. Sunday school, morning service, evening service, midweek prayer service. That's our rhythm. And we don't want to do anything to upset that rhythm. And so if it's hard for families to get on Wednesday night, and I understand it is hard, then we'll make it even harder by having something on a Friday night, or a Saturday night, or a Thursday night. And so we don't want to impact our Wednesday night by additional things. So we don't want to hinder that daily, that weekly rhythm of our life together. All right, so what about the youth ministry issue, our approach to youth ministry and how that is a different approach than what's typically done in North American Christianity? Well, we just don't see evidence in scripture for an age-segregated approach to ministry. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise. And a companion of fools will be destroyed. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to gather together all of the fools in a church together and put them in the same room. What we want is multi-generational interactions. What we want to be fostering is the health and the growth of our families and helping the God-ordained spiritual head of these families with his responsibility to disciple his home. And we don't want to be segregating out into age groups on either end of the spectrum. of ages, we don't wanna be segregating out. We want life together, multi-generational. And it is good for our young people to have regular interaction with seasoned Christian adults. Again, that is one of the beautiful things about our Wednesday evening prayer service. And that's why we refuse to have some sort of kids club that competes with the prayer meeting, right? I mean, what's more conducive to our kids' growth? We could take them up to the gym, We could run around in circles in the gym, and then we could have a devotional with them, an age-appropriate devotional with them afterwards. So we could probably get a lot of kids. In fact, if we opened up the school, we could probably have hundreds of kids pretty easily. Or we can be all over this sanctuary with a 75-year-old man and a 45-year-old man, and a 22-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy praying together for half an hour. What's better for the 12-year-old boy? That multi-generational hearing, having our kids praying with the seasoned, mature adults in our congregation, there is a value to that that can't be measured. And there will be a cumulative effect of that over the weeks and the months and the years of our young people being comfortable in their interactions with adults, which you see a lot of young people out there not comfortable with that. Right? We want our young people to be comfortable with adults. We want there to be open doors for influence in their lives. And when you segregate them out, that just works against that, by and large. It's not that we are completely against that notion. We encourage our Sunday school teachers to, you know, you can take the Sunday school class, you know, invite them to your home, do something with them on a Saturday, build those relationships. That is great. And I'm thankful for, you know, things that Mark and Christy Smith have done with our young people with a progressive dinner and, you know, those sorts of things. We have the Free Presbyterian Youth Camp that we promote, and that's, of course, a youth segregated kind of a thing. But it's not that it's an absolute, you know, not going to do it. It's wrong. It's not like that at all. It's just what's the better choice here? And it seems to us the better choice is fellowship that involves the entire church family. that doesn't cut off anyone, that involves from the oldest to the youngest and puts them together in an atmosphere where there is the potential for relationship building and conversations and edification. And so that's, you know, that's kind of some of the thinking behind, you know, why we don't have a youth pastor and a youth group and programs and things for that. It could probably be argued that in recent years that the pendulum on fellowship maybe has swung too far the other way and it's been too minimal. It's been too few and far between. And that could be the case. And frankly, I would rather err on that side than tax family calendars and make spontaneous fellowship I'd rather err on the side of minimalistic. But we do recognize that we can do better. We have a fellowship committee out of the stewards that's recently been formed to help put this more on the front burner. We're doing more of these fellowship meals that we're having today. We're going to try to do them four times a year rather than just once or twice a year where you have Sunday school teachers that do have a personal burden for connecting with the young people outside of Sunday school and glad to foster that and to see that and we welcome that as well. But those are just some, I don't know, family chat about some of the ways that we think about church fellowship and life together outside of our Lord's Days together. I have a minute here, just any comments or questions about any of that? Anything you want to ask me about, you know, outside of, you know, our time together, happy to hear your point of view and to interact with you, to answer questions that you might have, if any of that's confusing. Hopefully it wasn't confusing, but if it was, I'd like to be able to clarify with you. But may the Lord make us wise, and may he help us to grow in our in our togetherness. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. That's what we want to be doing. We want to be refreshing the hearts of the saints, and that's one of the secondary purposes of our gathering, primary to worship the Lord, to grow in him, but we also want to, on the Lord's day, be refreshing the hearts of the saints, and so maybe be more faithful at that, too. Well, thank you for your attention. And let's prepare now for our pro time.