Being God's People

"The Church is a congregation, set to draw all people of whatever kind into one family. But it is also a mission sent to the nations, that is to say, sent to people not as isolated individuals, but to people in the full reality of their cultural, social, economic life as people. For the fulfillment of that mission it is not enough to say 'Come -- all are welcome'. It is also necessary to go, to leave the establishment behind, to make daring experiments in seeking to learn what it means to live the life of Christ in every one of the idioms and patterns of the myriad human communities. It is necessary that the corn of wheat fall into the ground in order that the particular fruit of that ground may be brought to perfection in Christ. But yet again, all the fruit is to be brought into one store. The variety is for the sake of the unity of the Body of Christ that each may serve not itself but the whole. This going and coming, this scattering and gathering of fruit, is the very life of the Church when it is true to its proper nature."  (Lesslie Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man, p. 111, 1966).