Revival of Loving Relationships

Last Sabbath I shared with you simple and objective goals set before churches in Ontario, Canada & North America:

Revival

Transformation

Education

Discipleship

Alignment

Community outreach

Evangelism

Healthy Leadership

It is an updated “platform” of delivering services as a church community.  Building up on previous developments of mission.  Today you see the banner on church wall reminding of these values as guiding principles for church.  Please consider how to apply them into your personal life first!  What do you need to revive and transform in your life?  In what do you need to align yourself with the Church Body?  Are you involved in community outreach?  If you are a leader here, how healthy are your leadership practices?

As I was reflecting on these questions during the week I had a powerful illustration when a group of volunteers from our church walked downtown with two pastors from Sanctuary London.  In a freezing -15^o we got to see the city from a different perspective – below the street level, from the river bank, from hiding places.  As pastor Daryl was guiding our group he kept referring to homeless and needy as “our friends.”  He did not say “clients,” just “our friends”… At first it was ad nauseum……  Really! Friends????  But he kept addressing the matter from all possible perspectives for us to “get it” – people end up on the street because they have no relationships that would sustain them when trouble hits.  And it is relationships that they need!  That’s why the best thing one can do is to consider and treat them as friends.  He called one fellow we met a “brother.”  I had to ask myself: am I ready to call outcasts my friends, my brothers?  Do I have that relational strength to care enough and offer friendship to needy people?   I also thought of Jesus’ words “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

We ask how our church can contribute to solving needs in the city, and in response we got a suggestion that we should begin at home, in our church.  The Community needs friendship, loving relationships.  We can help the city by preventing people in our reach from falling away from relationships, and becoming “homeless” while they may keep their house, or an apartment, for a “home” is much more than a dwelling place.  In words of my favorite writer Leonard sweet “we can’t sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land until we learn to sing the Lord’s song in the Lord’s land.”   Loving relationships – our first Revival need.