11.12.2025

Last Wednesday morning, I was interviewed about Christ Church by a seminary student. He’s taking a church planting class and wanted to interview me because, well, we aren’t the typical church plant. 

During the interview, I had the chance to think through our history as a congregation, and for some of the distinctives that make us unique.

And our distinctives aren’t just because of some notion we had. We are who we are because of our beliefs that are rooted in scripture. We can’t just look around us and measure ourselves by what people are doing down the street or at the “in” church in another state. The Christian church has been through movements, reforms, empires, awakenings and endless fads . . . and all that has shaped the way people worship.

Long before there were multi-site campuses, cathedrals, or even the “little white church in the vale,” there was a small, Spirit-filled community within the Roman Empire that called itself “the Way.” For example, in Acts 9:2, where we read about Saul’s persecutions, we read, “Paul asked [the high priest] for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (also see 9:9 and 24:22). While the early believers were called Saints (but before they were called Christians), the movement was called “the Way.”  

The Greek word translated as “way” is  odos which can mean road, path or journey (it comes down to us in the word “odometer”). It’s the same word Jesus used in John 14 when he told his disciples “I am the way, the truth and the life.” 

Why does this matter? Because for the early believers, following Jesus wasn’t just a matter of believing certain things — although that's where it starts —  as it was walking a particular path, a “way.” It was a way of life that was shaped by the presence, compassion and teaching of Jesus. 

Church historian  Alan Kreider, in his video series “Resident but Alien: How the Early Church Grew” describes this early community as having what he calls a “patient ferment.” He said the church didn’t grow because of aggressive evangelism or strategy. It grew because people saw something different, a way of living that was marked by peace, generosity and courage. The biggest difference and most influential was their willingness to forgive, which was NOT a positive attribute in the first century! According to Kreider, the attractiveness of the believer’s behavior was the most powerful evangelistic force.

Their lives became the sermon.

As I’ve written before, Christianity’s spread through the Roman world wasn’t through political power or wealth. It was through compassion. When plagues hit the cities, the wealthy and powerful fled for the hills, but Christians stayed and cared for the sick. When infants were abandoned (which was common, especially if the baby was a girl), Christians adopted them. They created little communities of belonging in a world that was full of fear and division (much like our own time). 

Another Christian distinction, besides the way they lived, was who they worshiped. When they said “Jesus is Lord” that also meant that Caesar was not! “Lord”was a title Caesar claimed for himself. 

Their faith was personal, yes, but it was also public. Not just public, their faith was revolutionary because it challenged the empire’s idea of power by offering another kind of Kingdom. 

Which was dangerous! By the second century, the followers of “the Way” didn’t fit neatly anywhere in the Roman world. They refused to worship Caesar (which was the theme of Revelation). They refused to participate in the arena’s gladiatorial games. They treated women, children and slaves with dignity and at meals folks ate together who the rest of society believed should never mix.  

So when the Roman Governor Pliny tortured some women believers to find out what made them tick, all he learned was that they met before dawn, ate a simple meal (communion), sang songs to Christ as to a God and pledged to live lives of honesty and faithfulness — none of which was illegal! He wrote to the emperor and asked, “What do I do with them?” The way they lived wasn’t illegal, but it sure didn’t fit into the Roman way of life, and it was clear their loyalty was elsewhere. 

Believers worshiped differently, lived differently, and they loved differently. They were forming a new kind of humanity that didn’t depend on race, class, or social status. Their community became a protest, not through rebellion (Rome would have crucified them all for that) but through faithfulness. 

But, honestly, when we look at the church today, we have to ask ourselves if we’ve lost that sense of “holy difference.” In trying to be “relevant,” the church has stopped being distinct. We blend in with the same politics, the same consumerism, and even the same anxiety that shapes the culture around us. 

But the beauty of the early church was not in its influence, but in its integrity. They didn’t have power, but they had the presence of God. They weren’t rich in goods, but they were rich in their relationships.  

So before church was ever an institution, it was a movement, a way of life.

That’s what we were seeking to do when we formed Christ Church. We wanted to return to the simplicity of “the Way.” Because that’s where the story begins: a people who believed that love could transform the world and who lived like it was true.   

Blessings,

Pastor Terry

PS:  If you’re interested, here’s a link to Kreider’s video series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbOAx84ri7g2OzXCKZwSU5x8GQwv8mAet&si=SHCv2xp28bkSsk_Q