Churches In Action: The Answer To A Broken World?Sample

Salt and Light

Jesus described the church as salt and light, essential ingredients for human well-being. Can you imagine what the world would be like without them? 

While the world grows darker and blander, how do we continue to shine? How do we maintain our flavor?

Jesus calls the local church to play a vital role in bringing life to its community. To fulfill this calling effectively, it’s important to maintain our distinctiveness. “We begin with the church because the church has an answer that the rest of the world does not have,” says Paul, a pastor in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Paul helps us realize the urgency of our calling. Jesus spells out the purpose of the Church as the bringer of God’s gifts, without which true life is impossible.

To understand the ministry to which we are called, we must look at the ministry in which Jesus engaged in.

Jesus responds to the request of a leper for mercy with deep compassion for a person in great need. Compassion literally means “to be stirred in the deepest place of our inner being”. The leper clearly understands Jesus’ ability to heal him, but wasn’t sure whether Jesus might want to.

Jesus’ interaction with the man gives us a great model for our own involvement with the most broken people in our own communities: He shows solidarity by touching this “unclean” man, so bringing himself not only under the risk of contracting a contagious disease but also under the condemnation of the Jewish law. Jesus meets the man where he is to lift him up and restore him. Jesus’ ministry is a demonstration of deep love in action. 

We, too, are called to stand with those who are broken and marginalized, to extend God’s compassion to them, and to see them healed and restored.

What would happen if every church demonstrated this deep love to their neighbors daily?