The Community is our business

Matthew 5:16

“Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works
and glorify you Father in heaven.”

Is our church a stranger to our community? Is our community being changed because we are here? Or perhaps we should ask,” Why did God put us here, on Holly street?” A church may be recognized nationally but often remain a stranger to its very own community. Just because they pass by our building, do they really know who and what we are, or what we are here for?

We often feel more comfortable not looking so obviously like a Christian. But Christ said that we should let people see our good works. He did not say let them see how good we are. He was saying we should do good works in our community. Works that will cause them to first recognize that we are somehow associated with Christ and what they see will cause them to glorify our Heavenly Father who is in Heaven.

We seem to feel that if we go to church and are not doing anything bad, then we must be a good Christian. However, Christ is expecting us to do something that will make a difference in our community and will cause this unsaved community to praise God. He is focusing on our care for them and showing them the love of Christ. They can not see Him, but they can see us and the difference we make, if we are making a difference.

The best we seem to offer are often empty words. “Join us this Sunday . . .” Why?
“Jesus love you . . .” Who is Jesus? Why would He love me? “Come to _______ event.” Why should I come to your event. My life is full already, I don’t need another event to attend.

Those outside the church hear all these as empty words that have no meaning to them and they fly by them like the wind, in one side and out the other. The problem is we can not answer many of these questions ourselves. We are often afraid not to attend because we want to appear to be a Christian, but why they are important and why we should attend is unclear to us as well. But notice that we are focused most on the building and our events and activities within the church building. Christ is calling us to live as faithful Christians outside the Church building in such way that people can see our good life works and glorify the Father. Of course we must be good, but here He is calling for “doing good works”.

We live in a culture who are not impressed with words, but with proof. They want to see the proof. We must act like, do like, be like Jesus in deliberate actions which will demonstrate the love of Christ. Don’t hide in the church, or be Christian only in the Church building. Live like Christ, seeing the people and proving we are Christians by our good works. That, of course, will require our learning about their life, questions and needs.