“The Church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is the people.” Most of us have heard this song before, but interestingly we typically forget this simple message. Often we forget that the Lord gave us a pretty clear view in the Bible of what his church was to look like.
The early church leaders in the book of Acts did two important things very well:
1. They gathered together daily – Inner Fellowship
2. They ministered to the surrounding community – Outer Relationship
The early church realized the necessity of being “IN the world” to preach the gospel, but also their responsibility to NOT be “OF the world” to remain set apart as God’s people. For the perfect example of this, we can look to no better person than Jesus: He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. But did He become greedy and self-absorbed like the tax collectors? No. Did He defile Himself physically like the prostitutes? Not in the least. Neither did Paul, Stephen, Apollos, or countless other early church leaders. These men and women ministered to the world without being corrupted by it. They followed the great commission that says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
There is no doubt the local church bodies are reaching out to the broken and hurting people – that is the way it should be! At Scarlet Hope we take that one step further. We go to where they are! We enter the darkness and bring the only light that matters – the light of Christ. We are a beautiful collection of sinful people gathered to lead other sinful people to know Jesus – our one and only hope! We strive to connect local church bodies to an opportunity to serve lost and hurting women that society has ostracized; to go to the darkest corners of our city and eat dinner with those we believe Jesus would be having dinner with. To make disciples and teach them to obey all HE has commanded us.
We need church communities to get on board and help us meet these ladies where they are: For some that will mean serving meals, some will disciple women, some will give financial resources, some will serve a hot meal to a strip club or massage parlor, and some will pray for the Lord’s guiding – we are a collection of the church. Maybe that is why the ladies we meet decided to call us “the church ladies!”
