Rethinking Church Part 4 - The Community of Love

How about evangelism you ask? Well, if we are faithful in meeting up and engaging in our purpose for meeting up, evangelism comes naturally. We become what the church truly is - witnesses of Jesus Christ to the entire world. It becomes a community of love.

When the church becomes a community of love with loving actions, the gospel becomes very attractive. Paul tells Titus how he is to teach slaves to live 'so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive' (Titus 2:10) Make no mistake. Godly lives commend the gospel. So are good works of social action (1 Pet 2:12). The church is a living community with loving actions, and not a group of people who only talk but would not act.

Jesus said it very plainly in John 13:34-35 that all men will know we are His disciples if we love one another. Therefore, it cannot be helped that unbelievers refuse to believe the gospel and call Christians hypocrites when the community of God is not loving one another. They have every reason to say that, and rightly so. If we want the people of this world to see the good news at work, and to know that Jesus is from God, then the community of God - the Church - must live the way it is supposed to live.

This means we must ensure unbelievers experience the church as a caring and inclusive community. And that does not mean a warm handshake on the door - it means drawing people into the network of relationships that make up the church. It means ensuring that our unbelieving friends meet our Christian friends so they can observe how we relate to one another. Then the church becomes the church - a community of gospel people, not something you attend on Sunday.

No one sits around any longer and wait for someone to show any concern. They move about showing concern to each other, loving each other and so as they give, they also receive. Thus, the church becomes alive. It becomes a living organism as each member does his part in loving and caring. Things are no longer organized, ordered or forced; it now wells up from the innermost being of one where Christ dwells in. If you had met Christ, you will be such a person. Perhaps you have forgotten but you are one - and God's community, and the world is still waiting for you to love them. Start loving. And as each part does its work, the community grows and builds itself up in love which is in Christ. (Eph 4:16)

The church. The community of God. The community of love.

"In my experience, people are often attracted to the Christian community before they are attracted to the Christian message" - Tim Chester