all your soul, and with all your mind.” But He also said: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” John spelled this out, “This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for our brothers!” (I John 3:16) Paul said: “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you” (I Thess. 3:12). Res member what Paul wrote in Colos- sians 1:28: “So we preach Christ to all men. We warn and teach every one, with all possible wisdom, in order to bring each one into God’s presence as a mature individual in union with Christ.” Paul’s goal was mature men who were fully grown and complete. Do you realize that to day 10,000 persons died from mal nutrition and 123,000 died from oth er causes? Also today 324,000 babies entered the world. Today the net gain was 190,000 persons: 190,000 more mouths to feed, 190,000 more bodies to clothe, 190,000 more minds to educate, 190,000 more souls to be reached for Jesus Christ. We have a growing task. If we’re to fulfill the command of Jesus to “witness to our world,” we must reach out “in breadth,” personally and socially touching those who can be touched by daily contact. We can reach them by radio, television, prayer, letters, telephone, and missionary partners in the outer fringes of geography. This is our task, and it grows at 190,000 a day. The answer is involve ment both personally and socially. When the church is Biblical, when it finds its Centrality in Jesus Christ, when it is Person-centered, and So cially Concerned, then the words of Jesus regarding His church become excitingly true today, “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
ten for sophisticates. It contains a warning against trusting in worldly wisdom. It counteracts a doctrinal error growing out of the mixture of Judaistic teaching, combined with the vagaries of Oriental and philo sophic speculation. These very here sies tended to obscure the divine glory of Jesus Christ. Paul empha sizes the place of the Word of God and the glory of the person and work of Jesus Christ; The third element making a major contribution to the life of our church is the Person-centered emphasis pre vailing. The best type of evangelism is personal. There needs to be an open sharing and a transparent hon esty, with a candor in speech and prayer, which cannot help but be healing to those involved. An aged woman in London wrote these words in her diary on each of the last 10 days of her life: “13,000,000 people all about me and no one called to day.” Have you ever felt like that, alone and forgotten? Loneliness is basic to mankind. Each of us needs to know that someone cares. These dynamics take place in our congrega tion for those who voluntarily par ticipate in small groups, where inter relationships are stressed. The shar ing of burdens is encouraged. We need to give ourselves to each other openly and honestly. One of our members described the church as ministering on the personal level, with an emphasis upon the inter dependence of emotional, physical mental and spiritual parts of its people. The fourth element has had an important part in the progress and growth of our church over the past few years .We should be Socially concerned. Our church believes that the New Testament teaches the Gos pel of Jesus Christ is both personal and social. It’s concerned with a man’s relationship to God. Jesus said that “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with 8
Leave it all quietly with Him: fears, foes, failures, future.
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