The Community Without Us

The Community

Without Us

Wherever we go, the dumb get wise, and the crime rates drop and the markets rise. Bullies make nice, crooks repent and the ozone layer shows improvement Where we’re led, all the living dead wanna leave their zombie mob. It’s a touching scene when they all come clean. God help us, we just love our job.
- Lyrics from Newsboys, Go, 2006. Song: Wherever we go

These guys were some of my favorite Christian artists when I was growing up. This song creatively describes how Christians have a positive impact on the world around them, albeit in an amusing way.

The exiles living in Babylon during the time of Jeremiah, were to seek the good of the city and pray for it, for in it’s good they would find their own good (Jeremiah 29:7). What if our presence as “strangers in a foreign land”, who are saved by God’s grace, were to have such an impact on the city of Rome that...

the community around us couldn’t imagine the community without us?

• What kind of influence does this church of united, Kingdom-focused, internationals have on the community around them?

Jesus prays for us this way...

...I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. - John 17:23

Jesus in us, as he is in the Father is our means and display of unity. The world will take notice of this uncommon unity, especially among such a diverse group of people. Our unity in Jesus tells the world that the Father has sent the Son, whom he loves as a clear message that the Father them too.

Together, worship of one God, practicing repentance and faith, submitting to his Word, loving one another in the name of Jesus. Wow! That, as often as we do that, the world sees and communities are transformed by the visible and felt reality of God’s transforming power of light and hope in a world with so much darkness and no lasting peace.

• What does this look like in everyday practice for you?

• How can you encourage other believers to gather, pray and seek the good of this city?