Our Story

 

This year, in much of my personal reading, I have immersed myself in the eighteenth century, especially the time period of the American Revolution. I have read biographies of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. As a family, we visited Boston and Philadelphia in May. We got to see and walk around many important sites from this time: the Old North Church where the lanterns signaled how the British were advancing, Lexington Green where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired, the location of the bridge in Concord with its “shot heard ‘round the world,” Breed’s Hill where the battle of Bunker Hill took place, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia where we stood in the room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed. These places play important roles in the beginning of our country.  To stand in these spots and try to imagine now, 250 years later, the sights and sounds of that time was surreal. Why? Because I am an American, and those places and the biographies I’m reading tell the start of our story as those who call America home. What happened in the 1770s paved the way for everything that has happened since then.

At the same time, I’m spending this summer studying Acts for my personal benefit but also in preparation to teach a ladies’ Bible study this fall. And this, too, is my story. For my identity as an American and all that ties me to our nation’s history pales in comparison to my identity as a follower of Jesus Christ, a member in God’s family. And Acts tells the story of this beginning: the first days of the church, the gathering of a people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised. This is the story of the new covenant and what life for believers looked like following Jesus’s fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system. We read in Acts how the believers gathered, how they handled challenges both inside and outside the church, how they made sure that the doctrine taught stayed pure, and how they spread the good news of Christ throughout the known world. We are inspired by these believers’ willingness to die for a cause they believed in – not the kind of freedom our forefathers in America fought for, but a much more important freedom, a freedom from sin and bondage that Christ had accomplished through his death on their behalf.

The story of our church, Grace Baptist, starts way back in Acts. The early church gathered, so we gather. The early church prayed together, listened to teaching, ate together, celebrated the Lord’s supper together, and so we do as well. We carry on what they began. Let’s learn from their example and continue the mission they received from Jesus Himself... to carry the good news of the gospel with us everywhere we go. And in doing so, may Christ’s church, the global body of believers from every nation and tribe, continue to grow and expand until we finally reach the climax that our story is moving toward: an eternity with God and His people in a new heaven and earth where we will truly be home.

--Amy O'Rear