Community, relationships and discipleship

A.  Relationships and Discipleship

The One Ingredient Essential for a Successful Church

A few weeks ago I read this simple conclusion of a church leader,

“I’ve been a Christian for 32 years. I’ve worked for or been a part of many churches. A good chunk of my degree work focused on analyzing how churches operate. I think I have some qualifications to express my opinion here. If anyone were to ask me what the one essential ingredient was for a successful church, I’d say this:.

The people in the church are genuinely friendly
and loving toward strangers and each other.
.

Now before I get thumped by some watchblogger out there, I am, of course, assuming that the church assents to one of the Christian Church’s major creeds, such as the Nicene or Apostle’s. Otherwise, the use of the word church would be gratuitous.

As I see it, a church filled with loving and friendly people can overcome just about any obstacle. I’ve seen it too many times to think otherwise. And churches that lack this trait can have everything else in the world and fail miserably.

Can Jesus make any pagan misanthrope into a loving believer? Sure He can. My only question: Why then are so many supposed Christian churches filled with people who could care less about the person standing next to them?” (here’s the original link. The comments to the post are also worth reading).

Pretty simple stuff, but it helps explain why so much of what Jesus tells his disciples, and what Paul tells the young churches he writes to is related to the command to love our neighbors, especially those in the “household of faith.”

Personally, I would want to emphasize the centrality of the gospel more overtly.  The author hints at this in his last sentence and stresses it in the comments that follow the article.  Perhaps it would be better to say, “The one essential ingredient for a successful church is the gospel” and then move point out that the fruit of the gospel in our lives is expressed most clearly in loving and holy living.  Interestingly, this is the flow of thought in John’s first epistle.

The big questions, of course, are the Why? and How? ones.  If love is the fruit of the gospel, as the New Testament so clearly teaches, why are we not seeing more warm, welcoming, loving behavior in our churches?  If this is a problem in our churches, how do respond as leaders?  Which again brings us back to the gospel and its importance for believers.