Players “in the zone” do some amazing things on the field. A church “in the zone” can do even more.
Isaiah 6:1-8, Acts 2:37-47
Well, it’s Memorial Day weekend and I have to say that this is one of my most favorite times of the year. Winter has faded (though this year it did not go quietly), summer is nearly upon us, and the fields and golf courses around us are teeming with people out playing games and getting some exercise. I also love this time of year because it’s a great season for sports. Baseball is on every day (sometimes both Joe and I are listening to day games while working in the office: I listen to the Pirates and he listens to the Mets). The NHL playoffs are in full swing and my hometown Pittsburgh Penguins are marching toward the Stanley Cup. The NBA playoffs are also on, and it’s amazing to see what athletes like LeBron James are able to do.
One of the reasons I like to watch sports is to see athletes at their very best, and the very best often get to a point in their games when they are in what they call “the zone.” When Carlos Gonzalez of the Rockies goes 4-for-4, when Sidney Crosby of the Penguins scores a three-goal hat trick, when a golfer birdies hole after hole—that’s being in the zone. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith called the zone, “the place where time stands still and performance is exquisite.” It’s the sweet spot, the flow, or as Duke University psychology professor Richard Keefe called it, “The Effortless Present.”
The Effortless Present
Keefe says that the zone or the Effortless Present is a state of mind and body in which action and reaction seem to happen automatically, a state that people can enter while hitting a ball, playing a musical instrument, or even typing on a word processor.
According to brain-imaging studies, professional piano players don’t actually think about hitting the keys on the piano; instead, their brain neurons fire in areas associated with mechanical motion rather than consciousness. Great players — whether they are on the piano or on the basketball court — don’t have to think about what they are doing. They just do it.
Of course, no one can pick up a golf club for the first time and hit below par. Perfect practice makes perfect performance, which is why professionals build routine and repetition into their highly disciplined daily lives. “This is how the adage ‘practice makes perfect’ really works,” writes Keefe in his book. “The more you do something, the more the brain changes to devote its energy to that function.” The more you practice, the more you are training your brain neurons to fire in a way that creates flawless mechanical motion.” The action, in other words, becomes almost unconscious. It’s muscle memory developed over years of practice. It’s that preparation that leads to feats of awe and wonder on the field, the court, the stage…and maybe even in the church.
“Awe came upon everyone, because many signs and wonders were being done by the apostles,” says Acts 2:43. Luke seems to be describing a church that is in the zone, doing amazing things, playing unconsciously. The crowd was watching and mesmerized by the performance. Luke says in verse 41 that “three thousand persons” were added to the church on Pentecost day and wanted to be part of the excitement of what was taking place.
Last week on Pentecost we talked about how the Holy Spirit was the primary driver of the church’s formation and empowerment. This week’s text, however, tells us that the signs and wonders of a church in the zone weren’t just the result of supernatural intervention alone. There are many gifted athletes in the world, but only a few ever make it into the zone consistently. There are plenty of churches in the world who have been gifted by the Holy Spirit, but only a few ever experience and demonstrate “awe and wonder” on a frequent basis. What’s the difference? Practice!
“They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers” (v. 42). The word translated “devoted” in Greek is actually a long compound word that means “be strong toward.” No one finds the Effortless Present without being “strong toward” something. If it’s golf, you have to be dragged away from the practice range. If it’s basketball, you’re shooting hoops at midnight.
The early Christians were “strong toward” certain things, namely, the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer.” They couldn’t get enough of it—they were always doing these things when they got together. It was their practice regimen and it’s still the basic tasks the church is called to practice today.
Teaching
First, there’s the teaching. As we go through the Book of Acts in this series the one thing we will see over and over again is that when the apostles preach, they are always telling the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as the climax of Israel’s story and the hinge point in God’s redemptive rescue mission for the whole world. They grounded their teaching in the Hebrew Scriptures and in their own eyewitness experience of being with Jesus. The one who had been crucified was both Lord and Messiah—and this was God’s plan.
For the early church, the practice of teaching and learning the Scriptures about Jesus was not merely about gleaning more information. That would be like reading a book on hitting a baseball without actually practicing it—you’ll never get in the zone that way. No, the apostle’s teaching and the study of Scripture is all about getting equipped to go and practice the way of Jesus and spread the good news of Jesus and his kingdom to others. Teaching and learning is a means to an end, not the end itself.
A lot of scholars have suggested that one of the main places the church today has gone off track is in the area of Christian education. A few I have read suggest that the creation of the Sunday School in the 19th century actually began the decline of the church in the West. The church became more interested in education than practice, and people began to equate learning about Jesus with following him. We know a lot about the Bible, but knowing is only half the battle. As the apostle James puts it, we need to be doers of the word and not hearers only. We must be strong toward teaching, but only if it strengthens us for the work of Jesus and his kingdom.
Great athletes and musicians know the value of a good coach. The coach teaches, but the purpose of the teaching is so the performer can play better. We need coaches and teachers in the church. Indeed, teaching is a central piece to our Sunday worship. But teaching alone without practice doesn’t lead to the effortless present. To borrow a phrase from Nike, who has provided tools for many athletes to do their best, we should “just do it.” We take what we learn and then we just do it.
Koinonia
“Fellowship and the breaking of the bread and the prayers” are also critical practices. Actually, the word here for “fellowship” is the Greek word “koinonia,” which is more than just getting together to socialize and enjoy each other’s company. Koinonia actually means a participation or sharing in common—in this case sharing in common in the teaching, the meals, and the prayers. Fellowship may be the result of these practices, but the common sharing is the critical practice.
Breaking Bread
“Breaking bread” here has a couple of layers of meaning. As I have said before, eating with someone in Middle Eastern cultures is a big deal. It implies a bond, a deep connection. The early church gathered for meals as a practice because it involved the deepening of bonds and demonstrated equality among the members of the community. This becomes even more important later in Acts when Gentiles are invited to meals—a real sign that the community was no longer divided by ethnicity or practice, but rather equals in every way. As Paul would put it in Galatians, “In Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free. All are one in Christ.” The meals were a way of practicing that new reality made possible in Christ.
But the meals also held a deeper meaning. If eating together represented unity in the community, they also revealed a deep community with Christ. There’s a sacramental dimension to these meals in Luke. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus broke bread with his disciples in the Upper Room and that Jesus was made known to the disciples on the Emmaus Road in the breaking of the bread. Breaking bread was an act of koinonia and an act of worship.
The New Testament reveals that Christian worship was centered around the meal. It was a practice that pointed to a deeper spiritual reality and thus the early church participated in the Lord’s Supper every time they met. We see that in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul gives instructions to the church on the proper way to join together in the meal. The Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents dating back to the first century, also lays out the guidelines for the meal. Communion was a practice that the early church used to center it’s life and was the means of grace through which koinonia flowed in the community.
Our worship reflects that practice. When we practice the meal every week, we are saying in very powerful ways that all of us are a community in Christ. We are all equals, sinners in need of God’s grace. We can disagree with sermons, we can prefer one kind of singing over another, we can be dealing with a host of sins or problems in our lives—but the table is always here to remind us that we are a community of disciples who are called to share. When we receive the bread and cup that offer us God’s grace, we can’t help but go and offer that grace to others. Communion is a practice for life in God’s kingdom.
Prayers
And then there is the practice of the prayers. Professor Keefe says that along with practice one of the keys to getting into the zone, or the Effortless Present, is visualization. Simply imagining yourself doing something can light up the areas of the brain you’ll need to accomplish what you have in mind. A pro golfer will mentally play a round, shot by shot, before stepping on to the first tee. A major-league pitcher will reflect on his strategy for each hitter, inning by inning, before he arrives at the ballpark. “By doing so,” says ESPN senior editor Jon Scher, “he’s warming up his neural pathways before he warms up his arm, increasing the likelihood that he’ll wind up in the effortless present.”
We might think of prayer as the practice of visualizing a deeper walk with God. When we’re engaged in the discipline of daily prayer, we’re able to “picture” what kind of experience God wants and hopes for us during the day ahead.
Morning prayer helps us set the tone for the entire day. Evening prayer allows us to express thanks, and “review the film” as it were, to look for spots where we stepped out of, or away from the zone. Prayer in worship centers the community on the larger purposes of God. We pray for one another, we pray for the world, and we pray for God’s Spirit to continue to lead us into the places God is calling individually and as a church. Prayer shapes us and the more we practice it, the more we are able to visualize God’s will and way for our life together.
Teaching, koinonia, breaking bread, and prayers. These are the disciplines we practice as a church—practices that put us into play as a church called by God for the work of his kingdom. These practices aren’t the ends, they are the means. Indeed, John Wesley called them the “means of grace”—the means to connecting with God so that we might then be empowered by his Spirit to go and do that for which he has called us.
Worship is practice…
Our weekly worship is a practice. The game happens out there in the world the rest of the week, where each of us is called to give our best, to be in the zone for Christ. Worship must always lead to action.
In our Old Testament lesson today, Isaiah is worshipping in the Temple when he sees the awesome sign and wonder of God’s presence in the Temple. His sins are forgiven, his life renewed, his lips cleansed, but notice how this encounter with God ends. “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” God asks in the midst of his glory. Isaiah answers, “Here am I! Send me!” Worship, practice, equips us to say to our Lord, “Here am I! Send me!”
Notice, too, how the practices of the early church led to a very different way of life the other six days of the week. Verse 44: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” This isn’t a form of obligatory, enforced Christian socialism, it was the result of their practices. The people shared because they had koinonia with each other, it welled up from within them. They were a community in the zone because they had visualized, practiced, and connected with each other and with God. As a result, they had “the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (v. 47). People who live in the zone tend to draw fans and followers, be they athletes, musicians, or churches!
This past year we have been really digging in as a church into the practices that make for deep disciples and a dynamic church. Our Blueprints process has given us a means of bringing people together to learn and to practice koinonia in small groups. Our worship is designed to teach, share the communion meal, and pray together, visualizing God’s future for the world and for us. We want to be a church that offers every opportunity to coach people to become disciples of Jesus Christ individually and collectively.
But, friends, the game happens out there all week—in your homes, your workplaces, your schools, your neighborhoods. That’s where the world needs us to be in the zone—to perform as followers of Jesus in the effortless present.
Do that and the Lord will indeed add to our number those who are being saved!
