Love

If you have been streaming The Chosen, you may recall a scene from Season 2, Episode 2 where Simon presses Jesus about the need for developing and documenting a clearer organization structure and better management and communications approaches with their growing ministry – all with the unstated, but obvious design of elevating Simon to a position of authority over the other disciples. (If you haven’t seen it, I have included a link at the bottom of this article.) Jesus – in a wonderful leadership lesson to us all – reveals his understanding of Simon’s true motives by first telling him how much he appreciates his attempts to make things better for the group, then reminding him he “could stand to be a little nicer sometimes.” I don’t think you will find this dialog in any translation of the Bible, but I can see it happening.

In fact, I have seen it happen here at NUMC. It ultimately led to an undesirable outcome for our church and caused me to stand before a town hall gathering of our congregation and make a promise that has defined my approach to church leadership from that day to this. My promise was to “think less about bringing what I have learned at my work to my church and more about bringing what I have learned at my church to my work.” The first step for me was to just be “a little nicer sometimes.”

I have spoken before about the concept of “core competencies.” It is a competitive business term that was originally coined to described something one company did better than any other in its market. It is that one product or service that sets the market standard and ensures competitive advantage for as long as it can be protected and maintained. In the minds of consumers, it is clearly associated with its brand – Coca Cola, Kleenex, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, etc.

Did you know Christ declared a core competency for the church? He did. Look at John 13:34- 35.

“ 34 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

The core competency of the church is love. Through Christ and by the power of His Holy Spirit, we can offer each other and the rest of the the world something no one else can – pure, unadulterated love. By that standard, the church should be widely regarded as the undisputed and leading purveyor of love in the world. So why isn’t it?

I believe the answer to that question can be explained using another business concept known as the “hollowing out” of a core competency. Hollowing out refers to one competitor’s ability to diminish another’s core competency by offering products or services that are better or very similar in nature, but better in other ways – cheaper, easier to get, etc. Think of companies, like Sears, IBM, Kodak, America On-Line, that have lost their core competencies to others, like Wal Mart, Apple, iPhone, Google. I believe many modern-day churches have allowed their core competency to be hollowed out by inferior substitutes for the love and acceptance the world around them continues to desperately seek. They, just like Simon and me, have often focused too much on protecting those aspects of our ministries we bring in from the world and less on being devoted practitioners of the Christian love and grace we can take into it. So people look elsewhere for love, too often after being hurt by our unwillingness to love them as Christ has loved us.

This was a key factor for me when I left church for nine years. I came back when I found a church that seemed to take seriously Christ’s command to “love one another, as I have loved you.” While we are not perfect here, we have at the very least committed ourselves to a vision of being Christ’s love to this community.

A few weeks ago, I began this three-part series by pointing you to the banners hanging on the eastern outside wall of our sanctuary. There are three of them and they read, “Light,” Life,” and “Love.” I explained that those banners describe the three elements of the NUMC church vision – “To be the Light, Life, and Love of Jesus Christ.”

A vision is simply a statement of WHAT we are working to BE. It offers a view of what we wish to become and what we hope to be known for in the community. As I said in the previous two articles on this subject:

“It is a leadership responsibility to articulate and cast a vision for the church, and it is our individual responsibility as members to interpret that vision in the light of what God is calling each of us to do to make it a reality. That can be a little challenging. What does it look like for a church to be the light, life, and love of Jesus Christ? It takes a lot of prayer, a lot of preaching, a lot of Bible study, a lot of service, and a lot of good discipleship to help us understand what the vision means to each of us and how it can inspire and energize our work. I am doing this series in the hope that sharing my personal understanding might make that challenge less daunting for some.”

My last two articles covered the first two elements of our vision – Light and Life. Today, I will complete the series with the third element, - Love. What does it take for us to be the Love of Jesus Christ to the world around us? I think He gave us the clear answer in verse 34, above – we must love them like He loved us. Jesus welcomed me into His family and allowed me to feel as if I belong there, before He ever asked me to change a single thing about myself. I believe the church that is Love will give others that same sense of belonging. It will:

 Be open and welcoming to everyone. We don’t have to agree with people to love them. We don’t have to change them to love them. It will help a lot if we can untangle our politics from our mission to make disciples.

Always encouraging and helping those who need it. Our church has always been one to promote Christ’s love through social action. We acknowledge, as Christ did, the hurt and suffering that exists all around us and we commit ourselves to relieve it to the best of our ability. James 2:15-17 reminds us to love with both “works” and “faith.”

Build life-long relationships around small groups; Everyone should be able to find here family and friendships that last forever in trusting, discrete, and sensitive settings that promote growth, offer support for the difficult times we all face, and help us celebrate the blessings of God in our lives.

Give sacrificially; This may be the true test of our commitment to love others as Christ did. It was for Him. He gave everything so we could be reconciled to the Father, which is every person’s greatest need. While we find it difficult to give up our place in line at the supermarket, he threw off the privileges and comforts of Heaven to bring us back to God. There should be little we would not do to show someone the love of Christ.

 Always choose compassion over judgement and seek to restore those lost to fellowship; Christ always looked upon the masses with compassion for the pain they endured because of their separation from God – not with the contempt we often feel for people who engage in behaviors we dislike. Let’s continue to recognize, whatever our levels of piety or depravity, we all need this Risen Savior and His redeeming love.

Bottom line - The church that is Love will be family for its community and it will love them like family. D.L Moody put it this way.

“Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community. In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way.

A friend asked him why he went so far and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home.

“They may be as good for others, but not for me,” was his reply.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because they love a fellow over there,” he replied.

If only we could make the world believe that we loved them there would be fewer empty churches and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door. Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized.”

Our vision reminds us that is the kind of church God wants us to be—A place where love replaces duty or structure or power or control in our relationships with others. A place where our true core compentency is love. A place where we can all be reminded to just “be a little nicer sometimes.”

Grace and Peace, my friends.

Scene from The Chosen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCPoQAYNu0