Reading Plan:
Acts 16



Our Thoughts:
One reason I love the book of Acts is that it tells stories of small beginnings. And Acts 16 is no exception. In this chapter, we are introduced to the newest city on Paul’s “Tour De Gospel”: Philippi.

The little church in Philippi didn’t have a street address, but they knew their station. Birthed in a dream, they didn’t just have a vision, they were a vision. Remember this? “During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (Acts 16:9–10).

Named by Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, Philippi had its own storied past. It was the site of the most significant military engagement in all the Roman Empire. In 42 BC Mark Antony and Octavius conquered the republican forces of the assassins of Julius Caesar, Cassius, and Brutus. Philippi was the pride of the empire, a “little Rome” for which the empire had high hopes.

This is how it all began in Philippi. They were the first church in town. They were the first church in all of Europe! In one sense or another, this is how every church we see today began—as a dream, a vision, a small group of people who saw it and welcomed it from a distance, beckoning the horizon of the kingdom of God into their town.

When the people heard the letter and words like, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,” they didn’t hear it as so many isolated individuals searching for isolated, individual, self-fulfilling lives in the world. They heard it more like the New Orleans Saints would hear a coach beckoning them toward the Super Bowl - a force unified by a singular mission and calling.

It can be easy to forget the incredible power of God that can move through the unified mission and calling of the local church. It can be easy to forget that our towns and cities are battlefields of darkness versus light and of death versus life. It can be easy to forget that the local church is the tip of the spear of the kingdom of God. But what if we could see Venture that way again, as movements of God in the midst of our communities? Without a doubt, that’s how we began. I think it’s high time that we thought that way again.

One of my favorite quotes is from C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, a series of short letters written from the vantage point of a senior demon instructing a junior demon on how to effectively tempt people. This excerpt is from a letter concerning the church:

One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle that makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately, it is quite invisible to these humans.

Not to us.

Not to Venture.

We see the Church as she is. A city shining brightly on a hill saying, “Welcome home.”


More Questions:
• What would it look like in your context to see your community as a battlefield between light and dark? How does this change your perspective?
• What does “being the Church” mean to you?
• How does Venture’s vision of “being a church for the unchurched” play into your day-to-day life?


Prayer:
Jesus, thank you that you have called us to be an outpost for the Kingdom of God against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Rekindle our sense of service from your point of view. Awaken us to the possibilities of being a church that is the spearhead of a movement of your Kingdom, for your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.



Author: Blake Houston