Loving Church

It is not long ago that if someone had described me as a blogger, I would have assumed that it was a term of abuse. But here I am posting my first blog.

This blog is entitled Loving Church.

(1) Because a healthy church mustbe a loving church, full of people who excercise self-sacrificial, Christ-honouring, discipleship encourgaing love towards one another. By this we are recognised as Jesus' disciples. We must have churches where the word is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, but unless the word transforms the church into a loving community, and the sacraments declare the loving unity of the body, then the bible assures us that the church has nothing.

(2) Because I am loving church, and I would love to see Christians loving, not just other Christians in the abstract, but

• loving to gather together with the particular group of people with whom they have covenanted
• loving to gather around God's word
• loving to sing God's praises
• loving to pray as a body for the body
• loving to take the Lord's supper with their brothers and sisters
• loving all of this not ultimately because it gives us what we want, but because it gives the Lord we love great glory.