Written by Nancy Jean Vyhmeister
W= was the Christian church of the first century like? How did it function? What were the activities of church members nineteen centuries ago? What might it have been like to pastor a first-century church? For the most part, we can only imagine what a church would have been like in those days. NT writers were not consciously giving a picture of the church-they were interested in the message of the church-so they wrote little about church activities. The purpose of this study is to draw from the NT a composite picture of the local church functioning in the first century of the Christian Era. Our survey of church activities in NT times shows that the local church was a group of believers, loosely organized for fellowship, service, worship, and outreach. We will examine each of these areas of church life.