What does your church look like? What should it look like? Acts 1-2

Acts 2:44
And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;

We seldom think about or reflect or have an understanding of what the early church looked like.   We have, in our minds eye, our modern day church and we tend to project onto our image of the first church our current churches trappings and methods.   It should be noted int he passage above, and those that surround it, that the early church was instant and those in the "church" were immediately under pressure from the world to not come to Christ.  There was no building, no structure, no requirements, other than believing in Christ and demonstrating that belief by being baptized in front of everyone.   Property no longer mattered to these believers.   They did not "own" anything and, rather, they simply brought what they had (many lost everything by coming to Christ) to the body and the body shared, openingly.  Today, in our church experience, people tend to come to get.  They "join" a church because "they" like the worship, the preaching or the ministries.  Like a commercial retail store, they enter to see what is there and how they feel about it.   In the first church they joined to commit to Christ and to support the body for the purpose of giving their lives, their property, themselves to others.  In today's church we hire most of that done.   We have an elite group of commandos who do the work.  We have a pre-requisite for those are served.   We have an application process for those we can serve and are served.   It is not wrong to structure and modernize the church.   However, we may want to rethink and evaluate to make sure we haven't lost the meaning of the Body of Christ.  If my hands have to apply to serve my body, the body suffers.   If the body or any part of it acts selfish and out of line for the purpose of the body, the whole body suffers.   Qualify others and make sure we are serving real members of the body all you want.   But, in the process don't forget that Christ died for those minor parts of the body and expects them to grow and be used, as well.