Reason Number Four – Unfriendly church/lack of unity

The home fellowship ended and people began leaving. At the door a new couple said, “I always wondered what was taught at these home meetings.” What took place that night was a rousing discussion on why the old hymns weren’t sung anymore. Discussion of this topic should never take place in a home fellowship for a very simple reason. New believers always need a nurturing climate! In fact, all believers need to be in a nurturing climate.

The Holy Spirit directs us in a strategic plan of saving lost people. New Believer Concepts provides fourteen contacts with new believers in seven weeks. In addition, through the use of a tool called Power Visitor, many more contacts with new people and new believers are maintained. Many people invest sacrificially to care for the newborn in Christ. The Sunday service is carefully planned and prayed for so that the best possible climate will exist for growth of new believers and all believers. With all the effort that is put forth to help individuals flourish in their faith, it is a breakthrough for the enemy when thoughtless believers begin to express their pet peeves in public in the presence of those new in the faith. We are strongly cautioned by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 8:9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” This was sadly illustrated when an usher saw a visiting teen sitting in church with a b aseball cap on. He walked up to the boy and swatted the cap off his head, scolding him about improper church etiquette. At another church an usher rebuked an older gentleman who was a first-time visitor about wearing his hat in church. The man decided on the spot never to return. An unfriendly church that lacks unity undermines the climate for God to do marvelous works.

In the high priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus gives us the greatest evangelistic strategy in the Bible, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (vs. 21). And in verse 23, “…may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me…”. Unity is such a rarity in the world, that when it is truly demonstrated lost people take note and turn to Christ. The greatest show of unity comes from love. And the love of Christ is a self-sacrificial love. When believers are willing to sacrifice their personal agendas so they can help create a nurturing environment in the church, new believers grow, find their place, become discipled, and are released to expand the Kingdom.