Posted on Wednesday, June 9, 2010                                                         by Allison J

Is God speaking through our speaking?  Can others see His love showing through our loving?  One of my former students approached me about helping her with a paper she needed to write for school.  Although she, an unbeliever, was hesitant about our disagreeing on the topic, she was confident about sharing her own thoughts and views.  The topic of her paper was “Is the Church Really Necessary?” but the subject of our conversations as we worked on the paper together was about what somebody on the outside looking in thinks of the Church, and by that I mean, the body of Christ, believers.

We began by talking about the mission of the Church, and that was probably the simplest part of that paper.  We concluded that its mission is simple—Jesus said, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.  And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19,20, NLT).   Jesus also added,

“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37–39, NLT).  That simple became complicated when she brought up valid concerns about whether or not Christians, and therefore, the church, have been committed to that mission.  IS God speaking through our speaking and are unbelievers seeing genuine love through our loving?

We asked ourselves, “What makes something necessary?”  The dictionary defines “necessary” as something logically unavoidable, absolutely needed and required—but the question was, would Christians and non-Christians alike still be willing to attend a church if they had a negative view of the church?  That would make it logically unavoidable.  I was spurred to reread a book I had read during the summer, Unchristian by David Kinnaman, which we used as a reference in her paper.  UnChristian talks about what the new generation of 16-29 year olds outside of the Christian faith, really think about Christianity. 

The data they uncovered through the Barna Research Group showed that outsiders view the actions of Christians as contrary to what Jesus stood for—and they see Christians and the church as unchristian.  The book and the research and statistics given by the Barna group show that the Christian image has shifted to a negative one, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people.  For instance, a decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society.  Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a "good impression" of Christianity.  Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans shared with the Barna group an unchristian impression of Christians and the church. 

Fueled by her negative view of the church and the fact that she knew that the Bible does not teach that salvation means attending church, she concluded that the Church was not necessary.  It’s true that one can grow spiritually without the benefit of a church, but no man is an island to himself.  If people refuse community because the message of the Church is being tainted by valid accounts of negative encounters with the body of Christ, then we have a serious problem.  The question isn’t whether or not we have failed to grow in or focus on our faith, but whether or not we have loved those around us.  God hates sin, but loves the sinner.  Have unbelievers seen that in us?  The Great Commission says “go and make disciples.”  And how did Jesus say that the world would know that we are His disciples?  “If you love one another.”  Do we love?  Have they seen the message of Jesus in us?  Do we remember God’s saving grace towards us?  That He too said on our behalf that he who is without sin may cast the first stone—that He loved us too much to keep us where we were?  The message hasn’t changed.

Join me in prayer for God to grab a hold of this students’ heart—she is just one of countless youths searching for answers and not knowing that there is only One that can satisfy their souls.  May God love through our loving.