What if there were a place where we could be completely honest? What if we did not have to feel that we were traveling through most of our life's journey alone? What if we could gather in a place where people, despite our differences, had a common goal of helping and loving no matter what, so that we could encounter God's unfiltered love at its deepest and most consistent level?
Such a place would require trust. It would also require lives so transformed by God's love and mercy that there would be patience and willingness to receive all comers without harsh judgement or ridicule, while at the same time pointing toward a clear picture of a God who loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us. It would require time: time to ease into relationships, to develop some common goals, to discover common themes of God's grace and redemption as we recognize both our differences and those things which bind us together as men and women created in the image of God.
Such an accepting, free environment would also require the presence of unconditional love, the Source of which is God Himself as experienced in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. This Trinitarian community would gather to mirror the Trinitarian God who is, according to Scripture, "rich in mercy and full of love."
In such a gathering, there would eventually be opportunities to have others speak words of real encouragement and assurance in ways that we can comprehend most clearly. There would be opportunities to be honest about our struggles and shortcomings without flinching or without fearing that these will somehow be used to harm us or shame us later on. It would be a place where the eternal "I love you" of God Himself would be so evident in the hearing, responding, correcting, creating accountability, and encouraging of others that His love would seem to drip from the very walls like honey.
The late John Lennon, co-founder of the Beattles, imagined such a place without God (in his song, "Imagine"). But, as we have seen throughout history, such a place does not exist without the kind of love and peace that only God can give. Although we in the Church have often fallen short of God's ideal community -- one that, among other characteristics includes the kind of freedom and grace described above -- God through Jesus Christ has empowered the Church to be that community! Jesus demonstrated such a community among the Twelve He called as the first disciples. They, in turn, moved by the power of the Holy Spirit, participated in similar gatherings. Still today, there are men and women, teens and children, who are seeking such a place. This cannot happen with everyone -- not even everyone who attends church or small groups. However, among Christians who are dedicated to being there for each other in such open and loving ways, there is hope for true revival to sweep our land: fresh renewal of the power of "two or three" (or a few more) gathering to seek God's face and to encourage one another toward God's best for them and for the world He has made.
Its fruit is a Christianity without masks and without walls. It remains the goal for every healthy gathering of believers.
Let us pray and seek ways to be part of the Church in such a way that the masks can eventually come off, where God's forgiveness and love flow freely, and where the Church becomes the true counter-balance to the phoniness, loneliness, permissiveness and despair of this world. Where we are gathered for these good purposes, Jesus promises He will there, too.
-- Charles W. Christian
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