Earnest Love and the Church Directory

In a previous blog post I noted from 1 Peter 4 that one implication of living in the last days (“the end of all things is at hand”) is that we in Christ’s Body ought to love one earnestly. In this post I want to mention one simple, easily overlooked way of loving one another faithfully and earnestly.

In my years as a pastor, one of the most consistent concerns that I have heard from people in our church is that they are not experiencing a deep quality of love and care within the Body. I am happily mindful of many great ways that love and care is happening in our Body. But this has not been the experience of all. Many feel on the outskirts, disconnected, overlooked in the crowd of faces that make up Joy Community Fellowship. They like certain qualities of the church, but they simply don’t feel like they are very much a part of things. This is the most common reason I have heard from people who have left our church in years past.

I have addressed this before in at least one sermon, but I am mindful that a quick exhortation to love one another better is not the magic bullet to bringing change to this area of church life. A lack of love and care for one another is a statement about our church’s culture, and culture doesn’t change overnight. As I’ve heard it said, “Culture gets created by doing simple things repeatedly over time.”

And that brings me to the subject of the church directory, and a very simple thing that, done repeatedly, may be used by God to create or grow a culture of love. Perhaps it seemed like a strange title for a blog post: Earnest Love and the Church Directory. A few weeks back, Jeff encouraged the Body to fill out information for our upcoming directory and said something along the lines of, “The church directory is just a way that we care for one another as Christ’s Body.” And I wonder if anyone paused and thought, “What is he talking about? What care happens in having a church directory?” Sure, administration. But care?

Let me propose one simple way to use the forthcoming church directory to care for the Body of JCF, an easy way to love one another earnestly: pray your way through the church directory every month. Let’s say there are approximately 150 families/people in the directory. Take a few minutes each day to pray for three families/people by name. In a month, you can pray through the entire directory from start to finish. Or just pray for one family/person each day, and you can still pray through the whole directory a couple of times over the course of a year.

Perhaps the thought arises, “How do I pray for a person or family that I don’t even know?!” In a congregation our size, with two services gathering weekly, it’s impossible to know everyone who is a part of our Body. But that doesn’t mean you can’t love them earnestly by praying for them! The apostle Paul prayed for people that he had not personally met (see Colossians 2:1, for instance), and so can you. Just take a passage of Scripture that you’ve read recently and turn it into prayer for someone.

For instance, this morning in my devotions I read 2 Peter 3, and I was drawn to verses 13 and 14: "But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace."

So say I’m praying through the directory and I arrive at a person who I don’t know, or who I know only in name, but don’t really know anything about them. I takes these words from 2 Peter and pray them for my brother and/or sister:

“Father, please help so and so to embrace the wonderful promise that we are waiting for a new heavens and new earth, in which all will be made right. Help them to not grow weary of waiting for that wonderful day, give them grace to persevere with joy and hope as they wait. Help them to see and feel and be encouraged by the weight of glory being prepared for them in whatever afflictions they might be experiencing that are making it hard for them to wait. And grant them to be diligent to live in holiness while they wait. Help them to wage war against any sin that is troubling them, and to pursue peace in any of their relationships that might be floundering.”

This is a simple, obvious expression of love, and I wonder how our church culture might be impacted doing a simple thing like this repeatedly over time. I think the Lord might be very pleased to use such expressions of love in ways bigger and greater than we could possibly imagine. Maybe even take it a step farther and reach out to that person/family who you prayed for with a phone call, email, text message, Facebook message, etc, and let them know that you prayed for them, and what you prayed for. Such a practice may not look flashy, but it is one way that something as simple as the church directory could be used to foster a culture of earnest love among the Body of JCF.

When the new directory is published, would you consider taking the next year to pray regularly through it, and maybe even follow up with the people you prayed for? Whether you have felt deep love and care as part of the JCF Body or have felt neglected and disconnected, I would bet that at the end of the year you will know a deeper measure of that love for one another that Jesus Himself said would be our distinguishing mark in the world (John 13:34-35). I’ve never been so excited about the release of a church directory!

May God be pleased to work this in and among us, for our good and for the praise of His glory.