A church united, credible and visible

The gospel of Jesus is a gospel of peace. It restores the relationship between God and human beings, and also relationships between human beings. This gospel is not our creation. It has been given to us and only needs to be announced, lived out and received. But what qualities do we need to develop in order to proclaim the gospel more effectively?

A united church (Ephesians 4:1–6)

From prison, the apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus describing his vision for the church. It was a united church in which believers came together in love and harmony, where Jews and gentiles worshipped the same God and walked together hand in hand into eternity. It was a church with one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God.

Unity may be defined as the combining of our efforts, gifts, talents, resources and energy for a common goal. Unity does not mean uniformity. It does not mean that every member will agree with every word of a church’s philosophy of ministry, constitution or strategic plan. It does mean that every member will respect what the church community as a whole has decided.

Paul makes clear that church unity is not something that believers have to create. It already exists through the work of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). It is a spiritual reality. Jews and Greeks may once have been separate, but God has united them by the gospel. On the other hand, believers have been given the responsibility to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace”. It is like marriage: “What God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:6). God has created one church, but the work of maintaining that union is a never-ending task.

Church unity is always fragile. It does not take much to sow discord and produce conflict. A divided church saddens the Lord, undermines relationships and discredits the church in the eyes of the world. Conflicts have been common throughout the history of the church, and we also experience them due to theological differences, conflicting visions, divergent practices and personality clashes. This should not be. We need to rediscover the vision of unity.

A credible church (1 John 2:3–6)

It is easy to say that we have faith, that we know God. The majority of people in our society say that they believe in God – but are their claims credible? Is their faith authentic?

The apostle John was preoccupied by this question. Several people around him claimed to know God, but he proposed a test of their claims: “We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands” (1 John 2:3). If we say that we know God but our attitudes and behaviour are not modeled on Scripture, then we are hypocrites, we are not believable. John does not hesitate to denounce such false pretensions and warns us that how we live should be consistent with what we believe.

We should never underestimate the importance of credibility in our witness, both personally and as a church. Credibility allows us to gain the trust of others. If I have a bad reputation, will a bank lend me money? If I am a known liar, will a court accept my testimony? If I do not act like a Christian, will anyone listen to what I have to say about the faith? The credibility of our faith determines the confidence that people will have in the church.

Sociological studies reveal that we are in the midst of a crisis of confidence regarding the church and institutional religion. The Christian church lacks credibility in our society. Why? Because the church has discredited itself. We have not practised what we preach. It is disappointing to hear people say, “In the end, Christians aren’t any different from other people.”

In his book Living Faith, Jimmy Carter tells of a group of Christians doing evangelistic work near an Amish community. They came across an Amish farmer and asked if he was a Christian. He thought a moment and then gave them a list of people who knew him well, saying, “Ask them if I am a Christian.” That is what it means to have credibility.

Each one of us is responsible for the believability of our church. A credible church is characterized by the integrity of its members.

A visible church (Matthew 5:13–16)

Jesus says that believers are the light of the world and warns us against keeping that light hidden. There are several ways we can hide our light.

First, our faith is invisible when we keep it to ourselves. Today faith is considered a private and individual matter. It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you keep it to yourself and don’t bother other people with it. But Jesus said that faith should be highly visible.

Second, our faith is invisible when we concentrate fully on meeting our own needs within the church rather than serving the community around us. The church becomes a ghetto and a fortress as we focus on what happens inside the church rather than outside.

Third, our faith is invisible when we take a pessimistic view of history and society. It is very common in the evangelical church today to see society as so corrupt that we should have nothing to do with it. We keep ourselves separate from the world and its problems. We ask, “Why bother with the world? It is all going to be destroyed in the judgment of God. Let’s gather the church, keep the faith and wait for the coming of God’s Kingdom.” The church must be visible not only through its buildings but also through the exercise of its influence in the world.

Jesus said that our light will shine when people “see your good works” (Matthew 13:16). This phrase encompasses everything that a Christian is, says and does. I am convinced that the future of our churches depends on our good works, on the role that we play in the surrounding community. The church is not here to serve itself but to serve the world for the sake of the gospel.

Jesus goes on to say that when they see our good works, people will be drawn to the gospel and will praise God. They will recognize that God is among us, that our works are His works, that our light is His light, that our voice is His voice and that our proclamation is His proclamation. We are responsible for the reputation of God in the world because people will form their idea of God by what they see in the church.

Stéphane Rhéaume is pastor of l’Église chretienne de Saint-Eustache, the Mennonite Brethren church in Saint-Eustache, Que. This article is adapted and translated by Jim Coggins from the July–August 2002 issue of Le Lien, the French-language periodical of the Canadian MB Conference.