The Church in the World by Bishop Desmond Tutu

I love this quote by Bishop Desmond Tutu. I used it yesterday in my message. A big thank-you to my sister-in-law Missy for finding it.

The church of God has to be the salt and light of the world. We are the hope of the hopeless, through the power of God. We must transfigure a situation of hate and suspicion, of brokenness and separation, of fear and bitterness. We have no option. We are servants of the God who reigns and cares. He wants us to be the alternative society; where there is harshness and insensitivity, we must be compassionate and caring; where people are statistics, we must show they count as being of immense value to God; where there is grasping and selfishness, we must be a sharing community now.

In the early church people were attracted to it not so much by the preaching, but by the fact that they saw Christians as a community, living a new life as if what God had done was important, and had made a difference. They saw a community of those who, whether poor or rich, male or female, free or slave, young or old - all quite unbelievable loved and cared for each other. It was the lifestyle of the Christians that was witnessing.

Bishop Desmond Tutu