Feathers of the Phoenix | Copyright @jordanabina 2021

A couple of thousand years ago, there was a jailer having one of the worst nights of his life. He was working the graveyard shift in Philippi, the city where he and his family lived, and the hours were going by slower than any night he could remember. He wasn’t sure who the real prisoner was, himself, or the ones behind bars. As much as he may or may not have been enjoying the circumstances in which he found himself, he needed to provide for his family and put food on the table. At this time in Roman history, this would have been a job given to a military man. We can infer that he was a man of duty, a man of principle, and knew the definition of hard work. But no amount of training could’ve prepared him for what lay ahead.

Earlier that day, there had been a ruckus in the city due to a couple of guys stirring up trouble and disturbing the peace. It turned out that two guys claiming to have the power of God with them really angered some people, the wrong people, and they were dragged, stripped, and beaten. Once that was over, they were handed over to our friend, the jailer. He had to take their beaten and bloody bodies, drag them to a cell, spread their legs, and fit each foot into a stock. There was no doubt much resistance and struggle. And this was just the beginning.

Now, there’s having a bad day at work, and then there’s this version of having a bad day at work.

Sometime around midnight, these guys started praying and singing. It’s the type of day where all you want to do is go home but everything that can happen seems to happen to prevent you from any peace and any escape to the comfort of your bed. Midnight is no time for singing and I’m sure our jailer friend wanted to make sure these guys shut up. Wouldn’t you? How close was he to bashing these guys in the mouth?

Listen to what happens next as it’s recorded in the book of Acts:

²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶ Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. ²⁷ The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

Acts 16:25-28

An earthquake? Really? This jailer can’t catch a break! He had just fallen asleep again and boom, the actual jail walls are crumbling, and the prison doors are flying open. This poor jailer is probably wondering what he did to deserve such a horrible night and now, as we see from his actions, he’s not sure he’s going to make it out alive. Clearly, the event of prisoners escaping is punishable by death for whoever was on duty at the time. But Paul and Silas don’t leave, they stay his hand, and preserve his life. The account continues:

²⁹ The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Acts 16:29-30

Whoa. What just happened? I mean, if you don’t think that this response is nothing less than a miracle then you’ve been in church too long. This is unbelievable, and yet, it makes sense. He just witnessed two men, imprisoned for their beliefs, worshiping and praying to their God, and then has a front-row seat to see that God sent an earthquake to free them. Not only that, the jailer then finds them safe in their cells and is shocked to see them pleading with him to not take his own life. But even this isn’t the part of the account that stirs me. It’s not the singing and it’s not the earthquake, it’s what happens next.

³¹ They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” ³² Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. ³³ At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. ³⁴ The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

Acts 16:31-34

What stands out to you? Go back and read it again.

There’s something radical in this passage that could change the trajectory of our churches, communities, and future. I love this account from Acts 16, but I’ve always loved it for the earlier events of Paul and Silas, I’ve loved it for the boldness of Paul, but not until 2020 did I come to hear the Holy Spirit showing me something else. Instead of just telling you right away, let me ask you this question.

Who in your family has come to know Jesus because you have come to know Jesus?

I have been challenged to my very core to read those words in Acts 16, he and his whole household. Play that out in your mind, really, how did that all go down? How did this jailer go from one of those nights at work that make you question your purpose to being filled with joy and seeing his entire household believe in God?

I believe the answer to many of the issues we see all around us our found in the gifts that Jesus has already given us. The solutions to many trials we face can be found with a greater level of attention to the blessings and the tools that our Father has already established by his divine will and power. But sometimes, we as Christians and sometimes our churches as well, try to reinvent the wheel and find new and more modern ways of dealing with problems, when the simple truth is that God wants us to have a razor-sharp attentiveness to what’s right in front of us.

The wonderful God-given gift I’m referring to is family. The future of the church is going to be fought on the battlefield of the home, and the front lines are the family system. Whether or not the Church has the ability or willingness to see this will determine whether or not we equip families with the tools they need to lead, love, and reach their communities for Jesus.

At this point in the Church, it seems the model is to invite families to come on Sunday to be filled with a sense of God and be in his presence, and to this I celebrate. Coming to church on Sunday is an incredible gift with many blessings attached to it, but I believe the future of the Church depends on what happens when families leave the building, more than what happens if and when they come.

What can we infer from our friend the jailer and the night he and his entire household found Jesus?

Now, I really don’t know. There’s so much culture that I’m ignorant to, so many customs and aspects to first-century life that I have never studied, but that doesn’t take away some of the more obvious aspects of the story. The jailer has an encounter with the power of Jesus, asks how he can be saved, believes for himself, and then takes that message back to his family. Then the author of this book, Luke, writes then immediately he and all his household were baptized… he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Luke confirms that the people in his household believed. No one from the jailer’s household and family was at the prison that night and we have no reason to believe that they were already followers of Jesus or had heard Paul. The truth is, the man went back home to the family in which he led and by the end of the retelling of his testimony, they themselves came to believe in Jesus and were baptized. It’s a miracle.

This account points to some obvious variables about the jailer and his household. The first is that they trusted him. As a father and a husband, he was someone who could be trusted and believed in his word. I can see the look on my wife’s face in my mind imagining myself busting in the house with some dudes off the street or better yet, a couple of guys I just busted out of prison. But that’s exactly what our jailer friend did. He told his wife and kids about the encounter and all they had told him, and I’m sure Paul jumped in and helped fill in any theological holes.

What do you think happened? Were they forced to believe? Is that even possible? I suppose you could force someone to be baptized, but you could never force someone to believe. The bible says the jailer was filled with joy because his family had come to believe. This man, this father, shared his testimony and his family believed and now they belonged to a newborn church in the city of Philippi.

What if the Church decided to invest in this type of kingdom growth?

The home is where the real work takes place. The home is where the life-changing moments happen. The home is where men and women seek God in the privacy of their rooms. It’s where we flesh out life with the ones we love. It’s where everything takes place, the home. The worship that takes place in our homes will forever have a deeper impact than the worship of our services. A family that worships at home can worship anywhere. But the home is also the place people hang up the church hat when they get home on Sunday only to pick it up again in a week.

As the church reopens itself up to the world to which it’s called and rises again from the ashes of what it once was, I believe God would have us focus again on families. Can you imagine the impact the Church might have on the world if our response to the saving power of Jesus mirrored the response of the jailer? This is going to take specificity, this is going to take effort, and this is going to reap a heavenly reward.

The hunger to see the homestead changed into another place of worship is going to require a mindset shift away from the Sunday service being the most important gathering of the week. Now, listen to me, Sunday has its place. As long as it centers people on Jesus and not the Sunday gathering itself, it will always have a place in the life of believers. But the truth is, Sunday service is not where our faith gets fleshed out. That’s at home.

The home is where husband and wife learn how to bring Ephesians 5 into reality. The home is where Fathers learn to create a space in which their children can flourish, and a husband can begin to lay his life down for his wife. This needs to be a major goal for the local church, to see the homes of the people who attend our local churches become places of worship.

When we decide that this is a priority, it is going to change many aspects of the way we operate. The church schedule won’t be one that separates the family but brings them together. There have been many times over the last 15 years that I’ve had to ask myself whether or not I was contributing to the busyness of my congregation or teaching them to be a home that’s centered on Jesus.

The local church only gets one shot at this. Every family that walks through the doors will never be that age or in that season again. Just like children, people grow up and move on. This is the moment to establish little churches all over our cities that have congregations that consist of parents and children, singles and roommates, grandpas, and grandmas.

Think about this question without getting defensive as I did at first. Does the church help or hurt family worship?

When do our children get to see mom and dad worship? When do families learn together? When do families pray together? Our church families learning to be generous together or is that an adult thing? When will families take communion together? When do families share their personal testimony with each other? I would say the best place for all of those things to happen is inside the home.

Is my home a place of family worship?

In the movie Interstellar by Christopher Nolan there’s a scene that moved me to tears when I first watched it. The main character Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is having an emotional farewell with his young daughter Murph (Jessica Chastain) before he departs into space in an attempt to save the world. He says a line to her that just seemed to sting a bit. Cooper says to her, Once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future. Isn’t it true? For those of us who have ever lost a loved one, not just a parent, then you know that what lives on is the memories of these people; who they were, how they lived, and the special moments you had together.

Have you ever heard anyone talk about a spiritual heritage before? It’s an interesting thing to say because nothing about our Christianity can be passed down from one person to the next, at least not genetically. When someone is talking about a spiritual heritage, their talking about the ghost stories, the moments where someone from their family showed them, told them, modeled for them what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This is everything. If that was a part of how you came to know Jesus, then you can probably remember those moments even now.

So then, is that the way your home is? Is it a place of family prayer? Have you ever gathered the family around and worshiped? Would you want to? Don’t think that I’m saying this is going to be easy to establish or at least be well inside your comfort zone, because it most definitely isn’t, at least it wasn’t for me.

I remember when I realized my house wasn’t a place of worship and that I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to change, even as a pastor I was uncomfortable. I remember talking it over with my wife, sharing with her what I felt the Lord was saying and how we could go about ushering in a new season in our home. It all seemed like a good idea on paper, but we soon realized that fleshing it out would be a journey. And you know what? That’s okay.

If we want to be people who take the gospel home to our families with the heat and fervor of the jailer, we first need to have a come to Jesus ourselves and then prepare for the long haul with our families. This is going to take time but it’s time well spent. A household in pursuit of following Jesus is a household standing in the path of blessing.

My wife and I decided to first start having prayer before dinner and sing a song of worship at the table. What seemed weird and uncomfortable at first has become an important part of our evening and now that we do it, worship has become more of a norm in our home. It’s just one opportunity to worship as a family, together. It’s a chance to pass the right type of spiritual heritage to your family and an opportunity to put your faith in full view of your family. It’s also what we felt God speak to us as we prayed, it’s not a formula. From there, as we’ve grown together spiritually, we’ve added other practices as well.

The children of this generation and the next won’t be following Jesus because their youth pastor said so, they’ll be following in the footsteps of their parents, grandparents, and mentors. When it comes to our faith, more is caught than taught.

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Joshua 25:15

That passage in Joshua is a popular one but how is it actually playing out in the day-to-day life of your household. As we move forward into the next hundred years of Christianity, we must ask ourselves these questions: Is my home a place of family worship, and who in my family has come to know Jesus because I have come to know Jesus?

Lastly, the Church itself must lead this effort, starting simply by communicating the vision. We must realign people with Jesus and re-calibrate our homes to be places of worship. Parents are the greatest pastor their kids will ever have. The spot in your house in which you pray will be greater than any altar we can find in our church buildings. Not because there’s anything wrong with our pastors and churches, it’s simply because it’s where life happens.

May we encourage our men to live like king Josiah, clearing out the temple from any distractions, dwelling on the word of God, and preparing a space for worship. May we challenge our women to be women of the word like Esther, bold in their faith and warriors for worship. May we raise children to honor the ways of the Lord, not out of coercion, but by modeling a faith that is alive and active.

We can no longer afford to create codependency between pastors and their people, instead, we must equip each other for the good works God has prepared for us and be ready and active to deliver the truth to those we love, starting with our household.

Again, my mind drifts to the jailer and asks the question, have I experienced Jesus in that way? Have I experienced Christ in a way that burns in my bones so deeply that I immediately take it all back to my wife and children, share my testimony, and lead them to Jesus myself? Lord let it be so.

May you Father once again light the homes of every believing household across this world.