Yesterday I attended church service in Romania where I had visited my sister and the sermon was about the four things a (christian) community has to follow to persevere and grow. 

I first considered just posting the quote from the Acts of the Apostles (reproduced below) in the Rationality Quotes Thread but I fear without explanation the inferential gap of the quote is too large.

The LessWrong Meetups, the EA community and other rationalist communities probably can learn from the experience of long established orders (I once asked for lessons from free masonry). 

So I drew the following connections:

According to the the sermon and the below verse the four pillars of a christian community are:

1. Some canon of scripture which for LW might be compared to the sequences. I'm not clear what the pendant for EA is.
2. Taking part in a closely knit community. Coming together regularly (weekly I guess is optimal).
3. Eat together and have rites/customs together (this is also emphasized in the LW Meetup flyer).
4. Praying together. I think praying could be generalized to talking and thinking about the scripture by oneself and together. Prayer also has a component of daily reflection of achievements, problems, wishes.

Other analogies that I drew from the quote:

• Verse 44 describes behaviour also found in communes.
• Verse 45 sounds a lot like EA teachings if you generalize it.
• Verse 47 the last sentence could be interpreted to indicate exponential growth as a result of these teachings.
• The verses also seem to imply some reachout by positive example.

And what I just right now notice is that embedding the rules in the scripture is essentially self-reference. As the scripture is canon this structure perpetuates itself. Clearly a meme that ensures its reproduction.

Does this sound convincing and plausible or did I fell trap to some bias in (over)interpreting the sermon?

I hope this is upvoted for the lessons we might draw from this - despite the quote clearly being theistic in origin.

The Believers Share Life Together

42 The believers studied what the apostles taught. They shared life together. They broke bread and ate together. And they prayed.

43 Everyone felt that God was near. The apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs. 

44 All the believers were together. They shared everything they had. 

45 They sold what they owned. They gave each other everything they needed. 

46 Every day they met together in the temple courtyard. In their homes they broke bread and ate together. Their hearts were glad and honest and true. 

47 They praised God. They were respected by all the people. Every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.