What is love? Well, its about agape!

First off, wow.  It feels weird typing up another blog.  I feel as if I have not typed one out in a while.

However, you have not decided to read this blog because I have not had one out in awhile.  Maybe it was the title of the blog that caught your attention.  Or, maybe I have a follower who cannot wait to see what I have to say next (which is highly unlikely).


But love is a weird topic.  Many people have tried to grasp an understanding of what really is.  There are many songs that try to express the emotions they feel, there are poets that write so eloquently, as well as many cheese letters to someone they really like- all of this to express what is known as love.

Love is difficult to grasp especially for Christians.  For example, the term agape has become a common message in many churches.  The term agape is Greek for a love that God shares with His creation.  This word is often in reference to John 3:16, where we get the reference that God so loved the world, as well as John 21 where Jesus asks Peter three times if he truly loved him.  Yet, what does this actually mean for our world today?

Some people would go as far as to say that only God can truly love.  Humanity is never able to express true love to God or to anyone.  All of creation can only become the receiver of God's love.  This, to me, begs to ask the question of why are we here?  Are we here to experience an all loving God?  And if that is the case, does all of creation go to heaven?  I personally believe in another option.

Another option to this question of love, is to say that we are able to love God back.  For, God in the very beginning of creation, began the act of creating all the earth: plants, animals, the sky, humanity, etc.  However, the story does not end there, but God say's to humanity, "work and take care of" the earth (Gen. 2:15).  Whoa, really?  Humanity is to merely take care of the world to love God?  Yes, because that becomes our response back to God.

The act of taking care of the world goes as far as treat the world as God's.  For God made the world in the beginning.  God began the whole process of the entire universe.  Taking care of creation, becomes a loving response to the Creators action.  For example, taking care of creation can be working your job.  Maybe you are a miner, or a firefighter.  These are ways that we, as humanity, can live to worship God.

Worship does not only involve working our jobs, but worship involves focusing on God.  This is why the church is so important.  Because all the workers of the world come together in a united community to lift up the name of God in praise.  God becomes the focal point.  For our responses of the week, from our various jobs, seeks to act what God intended for creation that then seeks fulfillment in praise and worship.

This question of love goes to the very depths of the initial intention of creation.  All of humanity, all of creation in fact, lives together in order to praise God through our very actions.  Our vocations become a response to God in love.  This makes Sunday worship all the more fulfilling because the community comes together to lift up the name of God in praise and worship.

Church is a community.

"As for Christian America and Christian Switzerland, one thing struck me most of all, and that was that in American Christendom the congregation is still a real thing. People do not just attend divine service and then go home again, as they do with us; they do not go just to listen to the minister, but also to be with one another. They ‘gather together’ for worship. Even in the big cities I visited, such as Chicago, Washington and Richmond, they knew, greeted, talked to one another. Going to church is not a mere private matter; it is a ‘social gathering’, as the Americans call it. This may have its dangers, but basically it is a good and gratifying thing; the Gospel binds people together."

Barth's definition describes how the church was created to live.  In the beginning, God created creation to be in community.  Community becomes the basis for which we live in community with God and also with one another.  Our lives are meant to be in community that we share our weekly struggles and pains.

The church is a community that is not individualistic in any way.  Church is where we gather together to lift up the name of God.  God is not someone that we hold on to and take Him away from church to carry with us.  Instead, it is exactly the opposite!  God lives with us when we also live in community with others.  When each of us share our lives with each other, we become closer in relation to one another as well as to God.

To explain this a bit further, I will use the example of Jesus' words that says "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matt. 18:20).  Jesus invites the world to be in communion with him and also with each other in this gathering.  If Jesus is present with us when joining together for church, worship becomes even more of the focal point in church because we praise God for being in our midst.

All of this is to set up what we are created for.  Yet, how are each of us to live in a way that is communal?  If church is created for community, then how should the church act?  Here are several ways to practice:

1. Worship.  Worship is a part of singing and preaching that invites everyone into a relationship with God.  This worship is directed to the God who created all things and asks us to participate in that worship to Him.  Yet, this is not done alone.  We all have a part in worship that we sing with each other, we take communion with each other, and we listen to God's Word together.  Worship is about togetherness that makes the church a community.

2. Sunday School.  Teachers for Sunday school's usually descide whether they will have a Bible Study or a book study that is used as a devotional.  Sunday school is more of a pre-discussion or after discussion of the morning worship service.  This is helpful in getting others to think with one another about what it means to worship with each other.  Our thinking and discussion helps in understanding the God of the Bible as well as others thoughts on the passage.

3. Small Groups.  Small groups are important for sharing parts of each others lives.  This can even become a support group by praying for one another.  Moreover, small groups can then discuss biblical passages and how they can be practiced.  Small group should not focus on just either or, but both are important that makes each person open to the others, as well as inviting the Word of God into how to encourage and to send each other out to live how God calls us to live.