The power of the gospel is seen most clearly and fully when we have nothing in common with people we love and care for – and with whom we are genuinely friends in real ways – other than Jesus and his gospel. Then, we are community that has been founded on the gospel. Then, we are people who can only point to Jesus as the grounds of why we are even here and friends with these people. 

One of the points we frequently reiterate in our church is that the power of the gospel is seen more clearly in the fact that we are all different people, from different backgrounds, countries and ethnicities. For example, what do I – a white, British, postgraduate-educated man – have in common with a black caribbean lady who left formal education at secondary level other than we speak the same language? Even then, we don’t exactly use all the same words. We don’t look like each other, we don’t sound like each other, we don’t speak like each other, we’re not interested in the same things either and I’m pretty sure we both have very different myers-briggs personality test scores. By any measure, we have very little in common.

For others in my church, it gets even worse. Not only do we not look and sound like each other, and have very different interests, but we literally do not speak the same language. We are different ethnicities, nationalities and even language groups. We can do our best to communicate, but there’s no pretending that isn’t sometimes a struggle. Short of merely being people, what on earth do we have in common with each other on paper?

In both these cases – and in many more besides – I struggle to believe I would hang out and spend any time with these people if it weren’t for the church. I struggle to believe they would have any interest in hanging out with me if it weren’t for the church either. And not just the church, which is ultimately just a group of people gathering, but the gospel around which the church is built.

Read More