What do we see in the early church? Believers believed!!! Christ was real, he was for now, he was powerful, he changed everything and against the background of opposition and suffering the message of the Gospel spread like wildfire. The real, visible, vibrant, militant movement of Jesus' followers shook the planet and truly, as Jesus said, so it was. A church built on the prophets and apostles, deeply contemplative, strongly practical.
God has equipped every man and woman to be a minister of the Gospel, all with the same mandate to "go into all the world and make disciples of all nations...". This mandate will never be fulfilled simply within the structure of local church but as we walk out our faith in the context of the 'ordinary everyday' shape of our lives, wherever we find ourselves located and whatever the 'work of our hands' comprises.