The gospel is paid for by blood and empowered by grace, and I believe every church that stays healthy will do everything it can to build a gospel culture, a grace-filled community, where the body of Christ can flourish.
I remember the story of the young man with long greasy hair that walked into a ‘proper’ church on a Sunday morning. His jeans were ripped and dirty, his t-shirt smelly and stained, and his feet were bare. He wandered down the aisle looking for a place to sit, but none of the shocked parishioners would make eye contact. He finally plopped down on the floor in front of the first pew. No one breathed. Finally an elderly deacon began to make his way down the center aisle, and the people sighed and nodded. At least Deacon Jones is going to set this young man straight, they thought. Coming into our church looking and smelling like that! But when the deacon got to the front, he did the unthinkable. He dropped his cane and sat beside the young man on the floor, nodding at him as if to say, “Welcome. I am glad you’re here.” When the pastor came to the pulpit, he said, “What I am about to preach, you may not remember. But what you have just seen, you will never forget.”
What they saw was gospel culture.
Francis Schaeffer spoke at a conference in Switzerland in 1974 on the topic of “Form and Freedom in the Church.” He said there are four essentials to a healthy biblical church, which of course include sound doctrine and real relationship with the God who made us. But another essential is “Relational beauty.” Schaeffer said, “Lovelessness destroys orthodoxy. If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.” Relational beauty has a lot to do with building gospel culture.
One of the things I hear over and over from Christians about their church-search woes, maybe when they have moved to another city, is this. Why can’t we find a church that has both sound biblical doctrine and strong fellowship, or loving community? Where is that solid Bible-embracing church that is also warm and welcoming to everyone who comes through the door, a church that is intentional about helping people find their place and build solid relationships with the family of faith? What I hear is that most of the time if they find a church that holds firm to the trustworthy Word as taught, the people there are as cold as a fish. Instead of receiving a warm welcome and an invitation into fellowship when they walk in, visitors often sit alone and try their best to enter into corporate worship beside people who don’t even acknowledge their existence. The flip side is people who tell me they found a church where everyone loves each other and welcomes those gladly who come to visit, but what they are teaching and what they believe is not grounded in the Word. They are not sound in doctrine. Why can’t we have both? Sound doctrine and healthy community?
Anyone who has been around the Word for more than a few months has already seen that not only can we have both, but the truth of Scripture demands it. Jesus was, as John said in his prologue, “full of grace and truth.” Grace and truth. If that is true of Jesus then is it not also to be true of his church as well? Grace and truth. Not just truth. Not just grace. You really cannot either unless you have both. I would suggest that a church will not thrive that does not strongly believe that a vital part of the reason they come together on Sunday is to love one another. Jesus said it plainly in the upper room, after Judas had left to betray him. He looked the other 11 men in the eye and said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Just to make sure they got it, and that we do as well, He said it three times. Love. One. Another. That is gospel culture.
That must be the culture of any church that belongs to Jesus.
J. Mark Fox 