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In a parable called “A Brawling Bride,” Karen Mains describes a suspenseful moment in a wedding ceremony. The handsome groom stands at the front of a beautifully decorated church. Music fills the sanctuary. Bridesmaids and flower girls float down the aisle. Expectation mounts for the bride’s entry. The pipe organ reaches full crescendo and everyone stands for a first glimpse of the bride. Suddenly, a horrified gasp rises. Instead of a smiling woman dressed in elegant white, the bride is limping down the aisle with disheveled hair and bleeding nose. One eye is purple and swollen, and ugly bruises cover her arms. Her once-beautiful dress is soiled and torn.

“Does not this handsome groom deserve better than this?” asks the author. And then the clincher: “Alas, His bride, the church, has been fighting again!” (The Key to a Loving Heart, 143-144).

We long for the day when the bride of Christ will be presented as a “radiant church, without stain or wrinkle.” But in the meantime, terrible strife is tearing apart Christ’s church. Christians more often have a reputation for being angry than loving. We are known as people who fight over the most obscure differences.

Missionaries are active participants in the combat. Jim Reapsome wrote, “Criticism just seems to gush out of our pores. Missionaries squabble over doctrine, codes of conduct, strategic concepts, and yes, ‘office politics,’ all the way from the team itself to the home office” (World Pulse, Aug. 5, 1994).

Those serving cross-culturally are always looking for “the golden key” that will unlock barriers to the gospel. A recent Evangelical Missions Quarterly was devoted to strategies for effective ministry. It’s imperative that we find creative, innovative methods for outreach. But let?s never forget the most powerful means we have for bringing people to Jesus: loving each other. It sounds so simplistic, but love gives the most profound witness. By this, people will know we are Christ?s disciples. By this, they?ll be drawn to our Savior.

In one South American country, ministry efforts seemed thwarted at every turn. Discord and division shattered unity among the missionary team, hampering all outreach attempts. Then the missionaries resolved to be a grace-filled team. Extending God?s grace became each missionary?s filter through which team members passed their attitudes and actions. That ministry was transformed and great blessing resulted. Now that team has many effective outreach ministries. Its members are also mobilizing national believers to join the missions movement outside the country?s borders.

Love is the strategy. Jesus prayed “that all of them may be one? May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). Love for one another is more important than chronological teaching methods, community development, ESL, storying techniques, the Jesus film or any other outreach plan.

“Shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Phil. 2:15). And how do we shine like stars? “Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation.”

If love is the most important evangelistic strategy, it follows that the enemy?s most successful tactic is getting us to attack each other. The devil loves when we consume our energy on squabbling instead of outreach.

Let’s rethink our strategies and action plans to ensure that “growing in love for each other” abides at their heart. May God give us grace to penetrate the darkness of our lost world with love for one another.

 

Carol Plueddemann is the minister of congregational life and outreach at Immanuel Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Warrenville, Illinois. Jim Plueddemann is professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.