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Love is in the air at Scott St. MB Church. Since I came to Scott St. in March 2002, we have had 10 engagement announcements in our morning services. Of these, four couples have already married. No one around here can remember when there were so many engagements all at once. These couples bring a whole new dimension to our church (and no doubt to our church nursery in a few years!). We have added two new small groups to our care group ministry. It has been wonderful for us as a church to be reminded that love should be in the air, even if we had no engagements at all. The very fact that “God is love” is worth celebrating in any year. God commands us to love one another, and even to love our enemies.
The apostle Paul had to remind the competitive Corinthian church that they could do and say a lot of things, but if they didn’t have love, it didn’t amount to “a hill of beans”. That, of course, is the famous 1 Corinthians 13 passage – which has become reserved for reading at weddings in our churches, but shelved for business meetings, vision casting sessions and mission statements. Why, when Paul says in the next chapter, “Follow the way of love”? Love should always be in the air at church.
Patrick Bartley is senior pastor of Scott St. MB Church in St. Catharines, Ont.
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