I am an observer. But for something truly to be observed I feel the need to research truth and seek perspective. So, last night I was thinking about this statement I was impressed with while praying. “Funny how when people are in pain they want to change everything…” My observation was this.

I know a lot of people outside the church. Both believers and what I call pre-believers. On both sides of the aisle they have opinions as to what the church ought to look like, how it ought to function, so on and so forth. Now I am going to let the pre-believer off the hook. My reasoning is simple. They have not recognized the love of the Father. The greatness of who He is and how large is His grace.

We have all heard the statement “hurt people hurt people”, so I will just insert it here for a little context. As I said, I know many believers who choose the “I won’t gather” or “I hate church” or some similar “revelation. The difficulty with that is God loves the church and it is His body. Eph. 5:29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, How can you hate what God loves? 1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

It often is shown to me how many say things like “church is boring” or “if the church would JUST”… Folks you IS the church. When one sits on the sideline and demeans the church, one is denigrating themselves. Hey folks, the church are you!

My experience is those who want a loving church do so much to cause it to be unloving by their actions and comments. “I just want a place I can be loved” often translates to “I just want to be me” regardless of the pain I might cause another. And the more a person hurts or is in pain the more they want to change things to accommodate their hurt and pain. It does not work like that for it removes the very goodness of God from the picture by providing a standard of living beneath that of heaven. I am not talking about legalism but reality.

The love I speak of is not something manufactured but something realized as a fruit of the spirit. Not a work but a reality.When hurting people want to change something, of course they need to be loved, but the love they need is that of the Father emanating through a body, releasing the expression of God into the earth.

We are coming into a new revelation of the body. How important it is to recognize what pained people are going through, but to know the church is to look like the Lord and not the world. Yes, we hurt when another hurts, but that ought to raise compassion to see healing come, that the whole body might be healthy.

Please understand that I get the isolationist tendency to take “pot shots” at what they believe is the source of their pain. But that they too must come to recognize their piece in the dilemma facing the church. For what is divisive and polarizing on one end can not be overcome by allowing pain to be the balance.

We are one in the Spirit. That makes us…well, one! That is the challenge of the church to come. How do we realize oneness when we seem to be so “far” apart. Ironically, if we are Him we are already closer than we think!

There is a new cry of oneness that is manifesting in the earth. It is not unity of man (though that may result) but it truly is the oneness of the Lord engaging His people.

When someone is off to the sidelines jeering and booing, invite them into the game. It not be played the way you always played it but it will be His game plan.