Loving stops leaving

Don't Go to Church;Be the Church.

Our church has embraced this slogan with a whole heart in the past year. We were grateful for the graphics at theFaith in Action website and adapted them for our use this past year. But it's more than a slogan for us; it's a mission.

The church - your church - was never meant to be aplace. Your church is a people - andthey includeyou. The church as described in the New Testament is a gathering of people who are growing in their love for God daily and who surrender their lives, vocations and goals to the will of God and His mission.

More importantly, discovering love in God cannot be self-contained and should not be marketed. It should be shared. The easiest way to share truth that requires life adjustment is through loving service.

That's why we urge one another to be the church. Loving involvement with others provokes spiritual sensitivity. Love is amazing. It destroys barriers and uproots objections. Love in the face of a world that offers cheap substitutes transforms.

I have no statistics to throw out, but I'm convinced that people will rarely leave a loving church. If they do, there are much deeper issues at stake in them than in the church.

So, loving stops leaving... most of the time.

In short, we cannot love God and not love people. Loving people means getting involved, serving, helping, and yes, teaching them in the way that Jesus did.

Let's recklessly love our neighbors AND our enemies and watch how God uses the power of His love through us to weaken resistance to Him and call folks to Himself.