Love Attracts!

I recently got an email from a good friend of ours, who happens to be a missionary in France.  She talked about some of the difficulties facing their church.  Churches have difficulties in all parts of the world.  But, then she talked about some of the good things happening.   This is what she said:

"... one of the neighbor ladies came and spoke to a church member who came to set up chairs on Saturday. She said, “During the summer, when the windows are open, I hear you singing such joyous songs. Every Sunday morning I walk to the bakery to get bread and I see all of you talking together outside. You seem so happy and content to be with each other. I was wondering if I could come.” 

She did come to the service the next day, introduced herself publically saying she was looking for “a place to pray”, and at the end of the service had tears in her eyes. She told me that the sermon was so interesting that she had taken notes and wanted to reread them during the week.  I asked if she had a Bible, and she said “No, could I borrow one? I’ll give it back!”  So I gave her a Bible and marked the page from where the sermon text was taken.  She obviously knew very little about the Bible and had no concept that it was divided into the Old and New Testaments.  She came back last week. I was the one giving the message and she asked if I could give her a copy.

            In these days when over-involvement is causing many believers to pull back from church life, it was clearly our life as a community that attracted this woman. Pray that she would come to be a disciple of Jesus and that we would know how to best walk with her in this journey. 

What struck me was what I've been talking about in other posts.  The best witness to those around us is our love for each other!  An atmosphere of love, acceptance, grace and kindness is a HUGE attraction to those around us.  On the other hand... when there are arguments and fights... when people clearly do NOT get along it is a HUGE turnoff!  Yeah, I know, I just said this same thing in a post a week or two ago.  I just thought it was interesting and timely that my friend in France would say the same thing.