The Church: Christ's Body "Love & Justice"

Over the past few weeks my wife and I have had some excellent conversations about our relationship and marriage.  For me the season of Valentine's Day  has allowed me to reflect deeply at who I am as a husband, but also what lens I tend to view the world through and what lens my wife uses.  A couple of sources of these great talks with my wife and personal reflections have stemmed from, doing ministry together, small conflicts within that ministry, our couples small group we attend, and my recent thinking and reading about the church.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that through all these sources one particular theme keeps popping up, and that is the balance of love and justice in our relationships; both to God and others. 

Naturally, I am a very forgiving person if someone wrongs me I don't really think twice about it.  I immediately give the person the benefit of the doubt and try to see the good of any situation.  If I know the person well enough that has wronged me I will choose to believe that they are better than that and must just be having a bad day.  If you were to place my view into one of the two categories it would be that of a more loving character or attitude.  In context of what I am trying to write about here, the way I do ministry or be a husband is through love and forgiveness when someone has wronged me.

My wife however leans strongly to the other side, the characteristic or attitude of justice.  She will immediately want the negative action justified or corrected.  Or when she sees injustice taking place, she is not afraid to speak up for the person or correct the unjust act no matter what it takes.  If my wife is personally wronged by either myself or another forgiveness is not easily given, instead it must be earned so to speak by correction or changed attitude.  Therefore, how she views herself as a wife and does ministry would be through the lens of justice and correction.

I am not saying love or justice is more important than the other, or my way of seeing things is better than my wife's. In fact I believe if you lean to heavily to one side of the spectrum and not create a healthy balance the relationships you have will begin to suffer. For instance my view can come off as though I don't really care or that I am even emotionless because I don't let others see how there actions have effected me.  Whereas, my wife could come off as strict, harsh, or even unloving.  When in fact she is actually one of the most loving people I know.

My point or question in all this would be, has the church leaned to far to one side of the spectrum when we do ministry? God no doubt displays the perfect balance.  In the Old Testament we see both sides when his people have wronged him, you can find stories of love, forgiveness and mercy; but also stories of justice, wrath, and correction.  God's ultimate goal of restoration in the lives of his people cannot be brought about without a balance of love and justice. 

So as the church how can we expect to aid God in this restorative mission if we don't communicate the same type of balance?  I think in the church we are very quick to let people get away with their sinful, negative, or wrong actions and just give them love and forgiveness.  After all if we call them out they could just decide to leave our church or cause other drama that we don't really want to deal with.  Scripture says that it should be used for correction or it shows how to up hold justice, yet we very seldom hold people accountable for their actions.

The Church: Christ's Body "Mission & Purpose"

What is the mission and purpose of the church?  To be brief let's just say it is to aid God in the restoration of humanity and creation.  Apart from creating a space for believers to fellowship, worship, and be ministered to individually or as a family. 

But as a church have we lost our focus to restore what has been lost or broken?  Or in other words do we emphasize "outreach"  in our decisions, vision, or programming within the church body? Has the church lost touch with culture so much that we have no idea how to "make disciples" anymore?  Or is it the fact that for too long we have been trying to reach others with only part of God's great story and plan.

Let me explain the philosophy of outreach or evangelism has solely revolved around the concepts of salvation and resurrection of Christ.  So we tell those who are "lost" that because everyone is a sinner we need to be saved, because sin separates us from God.  They only way that one can be saved is if they believe God sent his son as a sacrifice, taking our place of punishment and death.  So because Christ died for us and then rose from the dead he conquered death, thus giving us eternal life.

This is a very compelling argument and is great news even wonderful for humanity, but we are only sharing the pinnacle part of the story.  We tend leave out the beginning (creation) and the end (restoration) of God's narrative.  It is frustrating or confusing to say the least when you only know or hear part of a story.  Or  say the climax of any movie would not be that exciting if you did not watch it completely from beginning to end. 

Hearing or watching a completed story allows you to be more involved emotionally, gives you a better understanding of why, and therefore you gain a better sense of what that story could mean or how it applies to your life.  If the church changed its approach to making disciples of all nations by sharing the whole story of God, would we be more effective? Have more of an impact on culture? Would new and old Christians have a better sense of mission and purpose with a "whole/complete story" mind-set?