Neighborhood Alliance Church

Today, I returned to the office after a week’s vacation and some much-needed rest. We probably watched more TV “news” than usual this past week, and I was reminded again of what a needy world we live in.

News channels seem to be filled with both tragedy and trivia. Tragic news involves warfare (breaking out this week in Lebanon), murders, rapes, government corruption and ineptness, and so on. Trivial news goes on endlessly about celebrities who become even more popular and make even more money by flaunting shameful lifestyles. Why is the trivial so much in demand? My guess is that it diverts our attention from the tragic hopelessness of a world that will not recognize God in Christ.

More than ever, I am convinced there is only one way we can penetrate our desperately sick Western culture. How? By living our obedience to Jesus in communities of believers, colonies of heaven on earth that are visible to unbelievers. Jesus himself said it would be through that demonstration of our oneness and unity that the world would come to believe in him (Jn. 17:20-23).

During our vacation week, I spent time re-reading parts of Community 101 by Gilbert Bilezekian. On p. 37, I found these words: “This concern for the survival of the church down through the ages provides the explanation for the anguished tones of Jesus’ prayer. He knew that if the church should fail to demonstrate community to the world, it would fail to accomplish its mission because the world would have reason to disbelieve the gospel (vv. 21, 23). According to that prayer, the most convincing proof of the truth of the gospel is the perceptible oneness of his followers. In our day, whenever the church is ineffective and its witness remains unproductive, the first questions that must be raised are whether the church functions as an authentic community and whether it lives out the reality of its oneness. In a community-starved world, the most potent means of witness to the truth of the gospel is the magnetic power of the oneness that was committed by Christ to his new community at the center of history.”

May we obey our way into that kind of community right here in Lacey!