Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us

Imagine a new shoe company, of which you are the manager, opening ten new stores in a city of one million people. Would you think it advantageous to spread the stores throughout the city, or would you open ten stores all in one block, with some of the stores right next door to each other?

Having answered that question, think for a moment of the location of the churches in your community. What sort of opinion can we expect from the non-Christian when he sees churches almost on top of one another, while other communities have no churches at all? It does make a difference what we look like to the non-Christian world if we expect them to believe us when we talk about one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father.

The world that God loves is dying for lack of people to carry the gospel of his love to “the uttermost parts of the world,” while we who are his witnesses expend all kinds of energy and money on lesser things. There are millions of Muslims in the world, what does the church look like to them?

The first step in the solution to these problems is an honest recognition of the fact that the problems exist, and that, if we accept the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, it is important that we see ourselves as non-Christians see us. – Dr. and Mrs. Donald T. Bosch (October 18, 1968)