Key: Facilitate

FACILITATE culturally meaningful worship forms

Stephanas’ church back home followed the same basic pattern as the churches in Jerusalem, Antioch and other parts of the Mediterranean. These basic essentials hold true for every culture where the church takes root: repentance, faith, receiving the Holy Spirit, baptism, love for God and others, forgiveness, devotion to the apostle’s teaching (God’s Word), gathering for communion, prayer, fellowship, giving, discipleship, evangelism, etc.[1] However the way these activities were carried out, often differed from place to place, culture to culture.

The believers were encouraged to create their own culturally relevant worship forms, which incorporated the essentials modeled by the apostles. As with all Gentile churches, there was no requirement to adopt the culture of Jewish believers.[2] Neither were they expected to import all the cultural forms from Gentile churches in places like Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.^[3]

The team used the following guidelines to help them avoid imposing their own culture upon the new church—

• Discern the difference between divine commands and cultural preferences.
• Follow the local cultural ways as much as possible. Do not alienate the people.
• Let the people create their own music and use their own style.
• Encourage the new church to celebrate special local holidays and rites of passage in creative and God-honoring ways.

[2] Acts 15

^[3] I Cor. 9:22; Romans 14:4-6