We need each other. We need people in our corner, in our lives, and on our sides.

The Church isn’t a building, it’s a people. It isn’t something we go to, it’s who we are. It’s what we do. Jesus came to create a movement that would change the world, a people that would become outposts of God’s kingdom on Earth, the family of God.

Like every family, this one would have clear identifiers, family traits. And the greatest one of all was made clear by Jesus: our love. We wouldn’t be known by our beliefs; we would be known for what we gave, for thinking of ourselves less and others more. We would be known by a word that before Christ was an insult. We would be humble.

Few churches had the dynamic beginnings, excellent leadership, and influence to match Ephesus. Founded by Paul, led for a time by Timothy, and the church of John.

Paul commended them for their excellence, and most importantly their love. 40 years later something had happened. Something shifted. They had all the makings of a great church but they lost the most important thing.

The church at Thessalonica was known throughout the world for a faith that never went off duty, actions founded in love, and a hope that persevered through persecution and trials.

They trusted God, loved people, and refused to stop doing either.

Jesus prayed that His people would be unified, that we would be known by our love, a culture-defying example of unity in diversity.

It’s the only prayer Jesus prayed that we have the power to answer because He knew that our credibility with those outside of the Church is directly linked to our unity inside the Church.

We’ve all encountered people that we look at and say to ourselves, “I want to be like them.” On the flip side, we’ve all met people and quickly came to the realization that we don’t want to be like them.

The same is true of churches. There are good churches and bad churches. The question is: what kind of church do we want to be?

How we answer that is important because knowing the church we want to be and don’t want to be helps us to be the church the time requires us to be and God desires us to be.

Jesus took a group of teenage guys and entrusted them with the future of faith. We are here today because of what they did. Who in the generations coming after us will be “here” because of what you did?

Our life is bigger than our lifetime. The Scriptures are filled with examples of men and women who leveraged that fact to impact the future faith of the next generation. One of the greatest examples: Paul and Timothy.

When we study the present it positions us to be better stewards of the future. Today people live longer, information is more accessible, change is the norm, and faith is rapidly declining. The church in the United States is getting smaller and older.

When we study the present it positions us to be better stewards of the future, and that is exactly what we must do as the church. If we are going to impact the generations coming after us and help them develop an authentic faith that is all their own, we have to be honest about where we are and allow that to inform what we do.