This my friends, is CHURCH.

I think the question is often posed, what does a church look like? If church is more than a building, if it is a community of believers, what should that look like?

I think this quote pretty much sums it out.

This is taken from a message written to the Caesar Hadrian in the 2nd century. It was written by the philosopher Aristides from Athens. He later soon after this writting converted to Christianity.

I hope we as a body of Christ in our local churches, in our communities can be this. I hope that believers around the world whether persecuted or in safety can always be seen like the believers in the 2nd century were seen.

That my friends is the strongest example of witnessing. I pray that an unbelieving world would come to know the Lord just by seeing this in action.

This my friends, is Church.

"But the Christians...show kindness to those who are near them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly...They do good to their enemies...If one of them have bondsmen and bondswomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way with modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another...And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their own homes and rejoice over him as a very brother...And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity...And if there is any among them that is poor and needy, and they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply the needy their lack of food...Such, O King, is their manner of life...And verily, this is a new people, and there is something divine in the midst of them."