Which comes first? Loving Jesus, loving each other or loving the lost?

Recently I received an email response to a training post sent out entitled "The Mission of Small Groups" by Alan Danielson.  (Let me know if you would like to receive future training posts via email as part of your “Matthew Connection”.)

This response was from Jared.  I know Jared personally.  I officiated his wedding recently and he is the brother to my son-in-law who married my step-daughter.  (This is a round-about way of saying we’re related.)  What interesting to me about his response is that unlike me, Jared grew up only participating in house churches.  Meeting in homes with everyone bringing their gift to the group is “the norm” for him.  As someone who grew up in traditional churches, I am still having to “unlearn” some church stuff to “learn” some New Testament church “stuff”.

Not so for Jared.  His description of small group or house church life feels so organic and so much like something out of the book of Acts. The training post raises the question of the priority of worship, discipleship and outreach.  Below is his response.

“I understand the tendency of believers (and people in general) to get comfortable somewhere and go no further.  As believers we always have to be exercised to deny ourselves and follow the Lamb wherever He goes.  We have to encourage one another and pray for one another so that we have the strength to go on.  If we are one with the Lord, I believe there will be outreach, and the right kind of outreach - the kind that bears lasting fruit.

Also, the small group meetings are a great place to bring friends/family/classmates/coworkers who might be interested in the gospel, or maybe they are believers and need encouragement.  

It's a place where they can be brought into the warmth and care of Jesus and see His humanity, as well as begin to hear the truth (assuming there is someone in the group meeting who has some constitution and can speak it).  I think that in a warm environment like that it is easier to receive the truth revealed in the word of God.

In our small groups, it is a bit different every week depending on the mix of people.  Sometimes it's all familiar faces and we use the time to catch up, or for coordination, or maybe one of us is a bit out of it and just needs someone to minister Christ to him or her (actually we all need that).  Other times a college student may bring friends who are curious, and it is an opportunity to express the riches of the Christ we know to them.  Sometimes they receive the Lord, some are even baptized there in the bathtub.  Hopefully they will bring more students and the Lord will gain a crop of young ones!  Then we can all function to help them grow in Christ and go on to bear more fruit.  When they get older and marry and have a home of their own, maybe they will host a home meeting and continue to help more to know the Lord.  I think this is a very organic use of small groups of believers.

I tend to disagree with the statement that the Church is for the world.  The Church is really for Christ. The small groups are a place where believers can learn to cherish each other in the humanity of Jesus, nourish each other by His words of grace, and thereby function as members in the Body of Christ.  The Body of Christ being built up, perfected and matured into one new and full grown man is God's goal (Ephesians 4:7-16).  If we have that fellowship, enjoyment, and building in our small group fellowship, we will also have a burden to include new ones and reach out.  But if we do not love the Lord Jesus with our first and best love, we may just go to a meeting as routine and be completely useless in the Lord's hands.  I know, because I have been there.  God forgive me.  We need to pray to the Lord, and love Him with our first love, and open to Him, and then we need to pray to the Lord and help others to do the same.  God can do so much with that.  At least that's what I believe.  I admit I am just a small child in Him."

Wow.  Do you see it?  He can’t even conceive of talking about separating his love for Jesus, love for each other and love for those who don’t know Jesus.  It’s only when we have been immersed in a form of church that exchanges the dynamic of Spirit-filled body life for religious programing that the problem of an ingrown church life even comes up.  When the Holy Spirit is allowed to give birth, develop and lead us as the people of God, the healthy balance between our focus on our first love and our focus on His first love is just part of our DNA...we just are the church as He designed us.

What do you think?  

Pastor John Paul