It’s popular to talk about church as something we do but as you know, the word church is a noun not a verb.  The church is what we are and what we do is not as simple as some would like to make it.  We talk about going to church when what we really mean is that we are going to meet with the church.  A building is not the church.  As we often say, the church is the building that occupies the building.   But as a living building what should we be doing?  Why are we here?  What is our mission?  How would we know?  Thankfully we are not left to figure things out on our own!  The Scriptures give us a pattern without giving us strict details.  Since the church is God’s idea and Christ is our Head, we should be prayerfully and carefully reading the Word and listening to the Spirit.  Some would say that we are more enlightened now and we should move on from ancient texts to contemporary strategies.  Not all progress is progress.  Change for the sake of change is not always helpful.  G.K. Chesterton reminds us in his helpful little book called “Orthodoxy” that any so called progress that keeps changing the ideal or the vision is one of the principal blunders of our age.  He said, “Progress should mean that we are always walking toward the New Jerusalem, not away from it…but altering the ideal is easier.”  It is easier to change the ideal than to live to see it fulfilled.  Sometimes we lower the rim so the little kids can make a basket.  That’s fun but it’s a lot more satisfying to see the kid grow up and make shots on a ten foot rim.  God has a standard for us and we need to grow up into Him by doing what He said.  The passage in Acts that we’ll be studying this week is a helpful reminder of what we should be doing and is a good gauge for measuring our progress as a church…and as individuals.