Community Life as Mission

Are we a "missionary church"? This Sunday in the sermon we took a brief look at what the first missionaries, Peter and Paul, said to their churches about missions. We found, surprisingly, that they said very little about what we traditionally recognize as "missions." They do not exhort them to send out missionaries. They do not talk about the call of God on their lives to become missionaries. They do not even urge them to evangelize their neighbors or "take their city for God."
What do they say? They (1) explain salvation in Christ, past and future, so that we will (2) love each other and (3) live holy lives. Every time, in every letter, that is what they feel burdened to communicate to their churches.
We concluded that in the thinking of the first missionaries, the core of missions and evangelism is a church where its members love each other and live holy lives. This call on our lives is not separate from missions outreach: it IS missions outreach. It is the life of the community gathered around Jesus (in this case, Abbeydale Christian Fellowship) that is the primary witness in outreach.

It follows, then, that the obedience of a church to Jesus' call on our lives to be engaged in his mission can be measured by how well we (1) love each other and (2) live holy lives. Is our obedience evident? I think we'd do well to ponder, pray about, and explore this question. Do YOU have any thoughts on this (without pointing any fingers;-)?? In what areas? In what areas is it lacking? How might we move from what we lack to a more radical following after Jesus in these things he calls us to?

standing in grace,
Pastor David
ps. i'm being very intentional about using the word "obedience" to describe how well we love each other and live holy lives; loving our brothers and sisters and living holy lives are not a matter of "feeling like it" or what fits our personal preferences. This is discipleship, not consumerism.