I have for you a question to contemplate.

What is the most intimidating piece of equipment in your home?

For some, it might be the VCR. Not long ago, a friend was celebrating the birth of his first grand-daughter. He said one of the most exciting things about it was that in 12 to 18 months, there would be at least one member of the family who could set the clock on the VCR.

For others, it is the computer. While the number of homes with computers has continued to rise, there are still a lot of folks intimidated by them. They are folks that find it to be little more than a fancy typewriter or a simple way to play solitaire.

But I don’t think either the VCR or the personal computer ranks No. 1 for intimidation. There is another piece of equipment that is smaller than the VCR and simpler than the computer that strikes fear in most of our hearts. Do you know what it is?

How about this? The bathroom scale. Do you know anything more intimidating than stepping on to this simple piece of equipment and watching the numbers spin by? And the reason is simple—we’re overweight. According to one study, 97 million Americans—nearly 55 percent of us—are overweight. Too many Big Macs and too little exercise has left us with pounds we don’t need, inches we don’t want and muscles we don’t use. In short, we have become flabby.

The same might also be said for the body of Christ—the church. For years we have lived in a world shaped by and supportive of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was a time called Christendom when growth came easy, respect was assumed, and social and political influence was taken for granted. But times have changed. We live in a post-modern, a post-Christian world, and after years of comfortableness we are likely to find ourselves out of shape, lacking the health, strength and muscle tone necessary to do what we were called to do—to witness to the life-changing love of God in Jesus Christ. For us to fulfill our calling, we are called to get in shape—to do a little cross-training, to get back to that which has strengthened the church through the ages. The place we begin is with the four marks of a healthy church and healthy Christian identified by Luke here in the Book of Acts.

First, healthy Christians and healthy churches devote themselves to the apostles’ teachings.

When Elizabeth was enthroned as the Queen of Scotland, the moderator of the Church of Scotland presented her with a Bible. In the presentation, he said:

We present you with this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom; this is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God.

Today we would probably dismiss that statement as hyperbole, but the moderator began with the premise that the Scriptures—particularly that which was given to us by the apostles in the New Testament—are at the heart of right living. Knowledge of the apostles’ teaching is essential to living the life for which we were created.

Unfortunately, many people today, even those in the church, no longer believe that to be true. Pollster George Barna has found

But the issue is more than Bible trivia. It is a question of authority. The first Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings because they believed it to be authoritative. They saw its power in the wonders and signs the apostles performed. Because it was authoritative, they let Christ’s words and example shape their lives. Because they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings, they experienced God’s power, a power that led them to speak and act based on the life of Jesus Christ.

Healthy churches and healthy Christians remain devoted to the apostles’ teachings. They hold fast to the tradition that has been handed down to them. They emphasized Bible study and Sunday School, reading the Scriptures and listening attentively to the sermons. They know such things build the spiritual muscles necessary for us today and keep us from being blown about by every fad that comes along. Like an apple a day, it helps keep us healthy.

Still, devotion to Scripture alone is insufficient. Cross-training focuses on all of the body, and to simply spend all our time in the teachings of the faith would be to neglect other parts of the body that need help. Luke suggests that health also requires fellowship. "They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings and to fellowship."

That is not a hard sell, is it? We like the fellowship we have over fellowship dinners in Fellowship Hall. Being together for food—be it burgoo or Thanksgiving turkey—is fun. It is always something toward which we look forward.

Yet we need to be clear that the fellowship practiced by the early church was more than a casual gathering of friends and acquaintances. In commenting on their fellowship, Luke says that it was quite extraordinary. He says that they held all things in common and that they would even sell their possessions and goods to provide for the needs of all.

Such a picture frightens us. It sounds too socialistic for our tastes. But the voluntary use of their possessions for the good of all testifies to a level of intimacy, a level of fellowship, seen only in the healthiest of churches. Those early Christians shared openly what they had because they viewed what they had as gifts from God intended for the work of Christ. They also shared openly their needs because they knew those around them loved them. They did not hide behind the façade of self-reliance or the fear of embarrassment. Following the example of Christ, they practiced true intimacy with others, a true fellowship that allowed them to be real and honest with one another.

Of course, the question we have to ask ourselves is "What kind of fellowship does the church share today?" Are we, as one writer has said, "a gathering of strangers"? Or do we trust our Lord and one another enough to be open and honest about our lives—good and bad? Healthy churches and healthy Christians do.

To get in spiritual shape, we need to remain constantly in the Scriptures and in true fellowship. But we also need to eat right. Luke says that those early Christians devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread. In fact, he says, they spent much of their time together in the Temple, breaking bread together at home and eating with glad and generous hearts.

Scholars differ on just exactly what Luke had in mind here, but clearly he pictures a people devoted to worship. That was the point of going to the Temple. The Temple was the dwelling place of God. It was the place to offer God sacrifice and praise. And from the earliest days, worship was the reason for the breaking of bread, for celebrating the Lord’s Supper. Luke says elsewhere that Jesus is present in the breaking of the bread, that at the Table is where one experiences our Lord. Worship is a fundamental discipline for the Christian and the Church.

Richard Foster says that worship is to "to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community." And we know that. That is why worship tends to be the one activity in which most folks in the church participate.

Yet even there, we recognize that it is not the priority that it might be, needs to be, if we are to be strengthened for our life in Christ. On most Sundays, congregations like ours have less than half of their healthy, capable-of-coming-to-church members together for the breaking of the bread. For some it is a matter of jobs to which they must attend. Blue-laws died long ago. But others are sporadic because they have found worship merely ritualistic--the same old same old. Others come irregularly because they find it irrelevant--something that no longer speaks to today. Some simply cannot find it within themselves to make it a priority. Not long ago I read of a well-known retired Episcopal priest who said he rarely attends worship any more. How sad.

Spiritual health—both of the church and of individuals—depends on our willingness to worship God. Constantly gathering to break bread, constantly gathering for worship, reminds us of the love God has given us. It reminds us of the grace we have received and the hope we have. Worship allows us to know, feel and experience the very presence of our Lord among us. And that makes us stronger.

Finally, if we are to cross-train for the Christian life, then we must add prayer to our fitness regimen. It is interesting to note the language that Luke uses in describing the early church. He says that they were devoted to "the prayers." He doesn’t say "prayer"--as an act of spontaneous communication with God. Instead he qualifies it as "the prayers," probably having in mind the Jewish hours of prayer, the discipline devotions of the Jewish tradition.

This language is significant for two reasons. First of all, it means that the earliest Christians maintained their connection to God’s previous work. They did not quickly abandon the heritage they had received. They learned from and in time reshaped it to fit their new circumstances.

That is important for us because we not only have the Old Testament but now nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition from which to draw. Too often we have thought and acted as if every generation is supposed to take the New Testament and re-create Christianity. But the reality is that there is nothing new under the sun. Ignorance of our past, ignorance of the early spiritual fathers, of the early ecumenical councils, of the work of the reformers, even of our own Alexander Campbell, robs us of great wisdom.

But there is another reason Luke’s use of "the prayers" is significant. It means they continued to pray the prayers handed down to them--prayers that had been written and repeated for centuries.

Recently I read an author who bemoaned the fact that many Protestants do not use the prayers written by Christians over the last 2000 years. He said that by doing so we have robbed people of a tool to help them learn how to pray. But what has been even worse is that too often Christians have been forced to say "Amen," that is, "May it be so," to sincere but banal or even heretical ramblings of ministers and laypeople.

If we are to get into shape, then learning anew how to pray becomes essential. Tapping into the rich history of prayer that has proceeded us strengthens muscles long neglected during our days of comfort and ease.

There is one final connection that needs to be made between a flabby body and a flabby body of Christ. It is this--neither changes without the will to do so. Growing physically fit requires the will to cut back on one’s meals and increase one’s activities. It requires a desire, a commitment, to getting into shape.

If it is true that the church and that many of us are not in the spiritual shape we need to be to do the work of God, then change will begin with our will. It will only begin as we desire more than anything else to be trained for the work Christ calls us to do. Then we can and will, like those before us, devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers, to the regimen that will make us strong, healthy and whole.