Letter to a Pastor Friend

Dear _________,

Today was good.

I am in one of those pensive moods as I prepare to paint the bathroom - long over due. Ya know the new bathroom is over due to be painted when your wife buys kleenex to match the color of the drywall!

Bear with me.

Jesus said that the world will be changed ("by this world will know") when believers "love one another" - as you said today... LOVE WELL. That is clear as a bell in John 13.

We live in a culture in which believers in Jesus have not been loved well. They have begun to journey with Him, but they have not experienced that kind of agape atmosphere (relationships, community) enough for life change (transformation).

You and I have to love well. The requisite for that is to have been loved well. We have to have been loved well by His incarnation in the form of another believer - we have to have been mentored, discipled.

The folks in the room have not experienced that. Sure, a few have to an extent, but the majority have not. So, for them to hear the admonition, "Love well," they don't have reference for that. They are like the young person in the slum making mudpies... he does not want to go to the beach!

Love well means to DO something they (in their current belief system) are not currently not doing, and the congregation doesn't want to. Each of us is doing exactly what we want to do.

We cannot talk about obedience, mission, and outreach until we have people motivated by the love of Christ found in people like you and me.

Step 1: You and I "keep company with Jesus." We allow others (mentors) to love, and nurture, and lead us to Him. Here is where we experience agape.

Step 2: You and I pick out a few friends to live with, to invest in, and to sacrifice our lives for... exactly like Jesus did. Here is where we give away (agape) what we have received.

Step 3: Once trust begins, you and I can invite our few friends toward life change.

Obedience, etc. is nearly automatic at this point.

You and I have got to live our lives as Jesus would live them if he were us.

We have to incarnate Jesus.

We have to create relational atmospheres conducive to life change.

It seems we will do ANYTHING but this - the tough work of investing in the lives of a few friends.

Change is going where we have never been with someone who has. The church is stuck on the Savor Christ step. We all worship what we know of Jesus. We get to know Him better as we journey with those who do. Telling others to go and Savor Jesus is not enough.

From John 1:

43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."
44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.
45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
46 "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip.

Some how herein lies the key to the future of the church... loving one another.