Who Should be Allowed to Come to Our Church?

    Who is our church for, the churched or the unchurched? Perhaps this is a silly question. Most churches will atleast on the surface, claim that everyone is welcome. "Whosoever will, may come". The real question should be, what will we require of those who want to be a part of our church? Are we going to ask them to abandon a few behaviors, and adopt some others before participating? Will we ask them to dress differently before attending, go through a class, remove any "eccentric" piercings, or cover up their tattoos?

    To answer that question I would like to defer you to Acts 15; the first business meeting of Christianity. First of all, it is very important to understand the setting and context of the Christian faith during the first couple decades after Jesus' death and resurrection. During this time Christianity was confined to Jerusalem and the surrounding cities. In fact, Christianity wasn't even called "Christianity" yet. It was still considered a sect of Judaism. When you decided to follow Christ, it was understood that you were converting to the Jewish faith.

    The events that led to this meeting in Acts 15 were quite controversial. The Gentiles were anyone who wasn't a Jew. They were considered "outsiders" by the Jews. Now these Gentiles all over the known world were coming to Christ. There was only one MAJOR problem... They weren't converting to Judaism! Their men weren't getting circumcised, they weren't giving up pork, they didn't meet in the synagogue, or keeping any of the Jewish regulations.

    During this tense meeting many believers made the assertion that these Gentiles could not be Christians until they converted to Judaism. This caused a major debate among the Christian leaders. That was until Peter reminded them that they are saved not by religion, rites and rituals, rules and regulations, works or performance, but by God's grace alone through faith. Then James made the ultimate decision that "we should not make if difficult for those who are turning to God".

    Then they sent a letter to all the Gentile congregations informing them of their decision. Remember, Christianity was still considered a part of Judaism back then and hadn't become a separate religion. Judaism had over 600 rules and regulations to keep daily, dozens of rights and rituals, not to mention circumcision.

    The apostles decision was for Gentiles to be courteous about eating food sacraficed to idols in front of Jews, blood, eating the meat of animals that had been strangled, and to abstain from sexual immortality ..... That's it... No other rules, regulations, "do's and don'ts". If they did all this, they were part of the faith, then still being Judaism.... wow! That was a HUGE leap of acceptance.

    I believe we have answered our question. It is not right for us to place extra burdens on people who want to be part of the church. Especially when the burdens we seek to place on them are are mere traditions of men. Given the rigorous nature of the Jewish faith, the apostles made radical efforts to make the Gentiles feel accepted into the fold. We should follow their example. We shouldn't make it difficult for those who are coming to God.