What is one ingredient you think would be essential or at least important to the success of a new religious movement? Please read the first 12 chapters of Acts and see if you can find an example of the 1st century church either having or not having that ingredient.Thursday, February 15, 2007
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No single ingredient makes a church successful. Instead, it is several, and the early church had that, if it did not the church would not have survived.
First, the church needs money. Many of the followers sold their land, possessions, and other worldly materials to fund the ministry of the faith. Without these donations, the church would have been finically broke.
Second, you need followers. Even a cult needs followers. As we read Acts we see that the number of followers is expanding, which is a good thing because it means that your cause is starting to have more power and influence. In addition, it did not discriminate against peoples of different nationalities. Even those who were considered unclean before were now welcomed into the faith as brothers. It is church teaching to accept anyone who believes in God. Consequently, it gives the church a wider base to find people.
Finally, you need to be able to handle persecution. One of the problems with today’s Christians in our country is that they do not fully believe. They would give up their faith in face of adversity. However, in those days the apostles would rather die a painful slow death, than to deny or even a simple thing such as stop preaching. Instead, they refused to deny their faith and worked until their death proclaiming the works of Jesus Christ. These important elements kept the Christian faith alive and well for those important first years.
One thing that I think would be especially important to the success of a new religious movement is the right kind of leadership. And, as far as I can tell, the early church had this kind of leadership. Right away in the beginning of Acts, in chapter 1, we see Peter step forward to fill the disciple position vacated by Judas Iscariot. Then, in chapters 2 and 3, he addresses the crowd and assures them that Jesus was the messiah and that he rose after death and eventually ascended to heaven, just as the Old Testament writers had predicted. Lastly, he spoke with John in front of the Sanhedrin, defending their message.
As far as I'm concerned, Peter served as a great leader that the early church would have needed in order to survive. He spoke to the people and they listened. He spoke to the disciples other followers and he was unchallenged as far as we see in Acts. The Tenney book saw the same trend--John and Stephen were also present as leader-type figures for the early church, but Peter's leadership really stood out.
Rachelle Rasmussen
An essential ingredient to the success of a new religious movement is the acceptance of new members from various backgrounds and histories. The early Christians leaders were allowed to persuade many into joining Christianity by the power of the Holy Spirit giving them the ability to speak each person's native language. Gentiles were also accepted into the church along with Jews and other groups. They were accepted as long as they accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Another ingredient to the success is the ability of new converts to step up and become a leader in their new group. An example of this is Saul, who persecuted many Christians before being converted by a vision of Christ, then changed his name to Paul and started to preach and convert those that he would have persecuted in the past.
The final ingredient is the willingness of many to sacrifice themselves for the good of the movement. Many people became martyrs due to their faith in Christ. Stephen was stoned to death and others were imprisoned, tortured and killed for their faith. For the movement to succeed, leaders had to follow what they preach and they preached that they should stick true to the religion even at the risk of their own lives.
I think that any movement, whether it is religious, political, etc., needs bold leadership. In the 1st century church, there was leadership, especially through Peter and the other Apostles.
Peter and John's leadership is evident in the beginning of Acts. In the beginning of Acts, Peter speaks before many crowds and discusses the scripture being fulfilled, and Jesus' death and resurrection. In Acts, it becomes clear that Peter was an outstanding speaker by the way he addresses the crowds. Peter said, "...this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law." A speech such as this one would inspire and probably frighten those following early Christianity, which I think is needed to start a movement such as this one. Peter's bold and fearless leadership was essential to the success of early Christianity.
Alyson Guthrie
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I chose to comment on Acts 9, the conversion of Saul. Saul was a guy who went around denying christ. He went around Damacus, telling people not to believe in Jesus. He asked the priests to persecute the disciples of christ. Saul was a very sinful man
During a journey, a light of heaven came before Saul and spoke to him as he fell to the ground. The voice scolded Saul for persecuting to believers and told him to go to Damascus. For the next three days, Saul was blind, and didn't eat of drink.
After this incident, Saul began going around Damascus and preaching the word of Christ. He said to the people that "Jesus is the son of christ,"
This is a good story about how christ turned a nonbeliever into a believer. Heaven Almighty responded to a sinner, by speaking to him and turning him to a believer. He didn't kill Saul for being a persecutor. I remember hearing this story at Sunday School
Alex Mason
I think that persicution may be essential to the success of a new religious movement. It seems to give a cult a type of street credibility. I cannot site any effect of this from Acts, but in looking at the history of the church, it seems to fit. If this isn't really an ingrediant, than maby miracles are. Acts is chalked full of miracles, and it shure seemed to help everyone involved. One example would be when Peter restored Tabitha to life in Acts 9:36 - 40
Although this may be one of the lesser ingredients in the success of a new religious movement I believe that dissent and disbelief are very important. Such strong dissent such as Peter’s disbelief and even the opposition Jesus incurred from many of his non-believers help create new religious motivations and differences. If it was not for everybody who did not believe in something, then it would not be possible to illustrate or create change. For example, early in Acts, specifically Act 2: 5-13, such dissent is shown. Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Clearly, this motivates people to try to explain their religion and belief. You learn best through teaching someone else. You need dissent to create faith. Many can obtain faith through their ignorance as long as they are willing to accept it. This is an important idea. The acts show the convincing changes that Jesus had on faith and religion.
In verse 3:15, even though Jesus’ miracles were still heralded my many as fake, it may have made them more confident in accepting their faith. Also, experiencing something very powerful as Jesus’ miracles for the first time, undoubtedly promotes exuberance and belief. Throughout the Acts Jesus’ miracles and manifestation of faith changes his followers. Such compassion and enthusiasm as a result of something powerful such as miracles create religious success.
Kirsten Saunders
I think that the most important thing that a chuch can give people is hope or perhaps the awnsers to questions but mostly hope and direction. The apostles did this very well. I think not only did they and Jesus go about proving that he was the Messiah but I think that they gave people a reason to believe. They offered hope in a time when their were not a lot of things to look forward to.
As most people have posted earlier, I agree that you need more then one ingredient to make a movement successful. First and foremost you need a righteous cause that people believe in. Without this all the other ingredents do not matter. Secondly, as it has been stated earlier, you need great leaders who are not afraid of being persecuted for their beliefs. Great leaders are what helps to drive great movements, they inspire people, and prove to people that their cause is a just one. Finally, you need followers who are also not afraid of persecution. The followers need to be just as strong as the leaders or the movement will simply fizzle out. A great example of this is in Acts chpt 8, where it talks about how the church was being persecuted and the believers were being scattered throughout the land. As believers were being scattered they spread the word to even more people. This is the drive that is essential to a successful movement.
I would have to agree with Konda in saying several ingredients are key to the success of any new religion or movement of any kind.
One ingredient that is sometimes seen as harsh, is discipline. In order to have a strong following a group needs to keep order and establish obedience among the followers. In creating discipline and getting obedience, a group can avoid chaos and confusion that is likely to destroy itself from the inside out. This is made clear in when the farmer lies about how much he sold his land for and him and his wife are punished for it, not by man but by God. This clearly shows the importance of discipline in the movement.
I Believe that one essential ingredient for the success of a new religous movement would be conversion of non-believers. If a religion appeals to non-religous types they are more likely to convert to that specific religion.
I agree with most of the posts already. I think that in order to have success, the group would need both strong leaders as well as followers. Without those two elements it would be extremely difficult to start anything new. A strong leader will bring what a new religious movement needs for a strong foundation. People need to have faith,and trust in order to buy into anything.
-Maggie Madrid
Of course, several factors come into play when trying to build a successful and effective fellowship of believers, but one thing that is essential for any group to maintain its purpose is a sense of community. At the very end of the second chapter of Acts it talks about how the ppl. "devoted" themselves to the teachings of the apostles and to the "communal life". It went to say that they broke bread together and prayed, etc. These things are extremely important because no successful movement can take place on an individual basis, a community of believers that are united for one purpose is the only way to ensure longevity. These early signs of community played an essential role in the development of the early church.
Kyle Schwan
The one thing you need to make a church successful is faith. Because without faith the church would be unable to grow.
The point of the early church was the believe that Jesus died and rose again. Believing that he did that took great faith. Yes there are other ingredients that makes a church succesful but if you have no faith but everything else the church can not be successful.
Margaret Schiley
as many of the bloggers have said, you can't just pick one thing that will make or break a church, it's a combination of many things. I really do think that the biggest of these is the ability to get non-believers to believe, if a church has this ability, i think perhaps the other things needed, like money and perserverance would come along with that. Peter's message in chapter 2 gives insight to this need.
-landon lawson
The most important thing for any religion is for the leader/leaders to have charisma. This is the major way that the religion achieves new followers as well as inspires those people already in the religion.
The apostles had charisma of an almost otherworldly sort. These were not states men who had been trained for this but were instead any number of ordinary professions before joining with Jesus.
This charisma can be seen when any apostle addresses a crowd. First of all the crowd listens to them and they are able to convince large groups of people of their message. Secondly they are convinceing them of some drastic things such as; Jesus was the messiah, that he rose from the dead, and that his road was the road to redemption. These things would not have been easy for a rigid Jew to accept.
John Schirado
Most people would find a group of people who believed in the same doctrine. In the early church, this was a very small group and a very short doctrine. In Acts 1 we see the disciples doing just that: the eleven met together in prayer and the belief in Jesus. Their decisions were based through prayer and counsel and when they added Mathias to the eleven, it was through this very decision making process.
In Acts 2 you see the continuation of fellowship, prayer, communion, and growth in those who believe in the same doctrine.
In essence, the disciples (now apostles) started off on the right track. I would not encourage a new religion to begin its ministry by street preaching and arguing with officials. We see the result later on when the apostles time again are persecuted and eventually executed (many of them). It does seem to work, however- and people began believing and accepting Jesus as God, Savior, Lord, and King.
There are many different aspects that would be i,portant to a new religious movement and it would be hard to pin point one particular thing. If I had to pick one thing it would have to be to provide a community of different people that can provide love and support for one another. I think that it is important to belong to a group and have similar beliefs that the group shares. There are several studies that say a person needs companionship inorder to survive. I believe the church provides that
today and also in the past. The church is generally accepting of various types of people. I think the apostles did an excellent good of providing this eliment in their early ministry of the church.
-Matthew Scott
JinSeop Lee
An essential ingredient to the success of a new religious movement is a strong leader. A strong leader should have variable talents. In this, a strong leader have ablities to show mircle or is a eloquent speaker. In my opinion, religious is different from logical thinngs. It doesn’t need to have a reason or logical. Religious should have strong power to make many people to belive it. So we could find some miracles from religious leader and leaders are eloquent speaker.
In Acts, we can found some strong leaders who have ablity show mircles or are eloquent speakers. In ch.3, we can found that Peter heals a crppled beggar(3:1~10) and his good preaches (3:11~26). And also we can found that Stephen is a eloquent speaker in ch.7.
Power would be the essential ingredient that I have noticed in the readings. In the case of the early Christian Church, the power is that of the Holy Spirit, which seems to be THE essential ingredient. Acts 1:4 & 5: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about…in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit”, (Gods incarnate power). The Holy Spirit is a powerful thing, I feel that in our day many Christians underestimate the POWER of the Holy Spirit. I actually am working on having a better understanding of it in my life and I think we all should.
-Nate Mills
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