Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions Raising High the Gospel Flag in Your Church

Raising High the Gospel Flag in Your Church

One pleasant aspect of pastoral ministry is all of the different types of people I get to meet and interact with. The range of answers to common questions such as “Where are you from?” or “What do you like to do?” are fascinating. There are hunters and there are non-hunters. For every lady who loves crafts there seems to be one who does not. Some families enjoy camping and others would never put a stake in the ground. Some watch football and others paint or read. In our context in Omaha, most people, surprisingly, are not from here. In most of our Connect Classes we have people from all different parts of the country coming to Omaha for one reason or another. It is fascinating to think about.

But, what makes it even more remarkable is the fact that these people with all kinds of different interests, from all different places, living in different stages of life—they all find community together in the church.

Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. The kind of fellowship or community that God makes is not based primarily on natural affinities or commonalities. He does not build a church just for young families or senior saints or cowboys or guys who play bocci. Instead, he builds community around, through and with the gospel. God raises the gospel flag higher than every other flag of personal interest and identity and tells the church to salute it. The gospel—the truth about what Christ did for us—is to be what unites us.

This is neither easy nor natural. What is easy for us is to forget the gospel. We may tend to build our identity around what we like to do. As a result, we will only be happy, encouraged, blessed or connected around people who like the same things that we do. But we don’t need God, much less the gospel, to have this type of fellowship. We can get it in our neighborhoods, at the gym, in a club or online. The type of fellowship that God brings through the local church is a fellowship through the gospel. It is that highest flag of identity that brings about the basis for community.

How else could you have what Colossians 3 outlines with Jews and Greeks, barbarians, Scythians, slave, free, circumcised and uncircumcised together? The Bible doesn’t tell you that you can’t still wave your flag, just that you can’t wave it higher than the gospel.

I saw this firsthand through my friend Dave. A few years ago he moved to Omaha with the military. Right away I noticed that we were very different. He is from the South and I was a dreaded Yankee. He was very neat and I was less neat. He wore khakis and I wore gauged earrings. If you were to put the two of us in a room, you would not think that we would be close. But, to our surprise, God made Dave one of my best friends. In the ensuing years, he and I worked together on a elder team to plant a church. We spent hours together pouring over the Scripture, writing a membership agreement, a church constitution, counseling people, teaching, laughing, crying and dreaming. It was clear before I realized it: This guy was my brother. We had deep, abiding fellowship based upon the fact that we had so much in common. You might think, “I thought you said you had nothing in common?” Yes, not much in common naturally. However, from the standpoint of the gospel, we have everything in common! We have the same past, present and future. We love Christ and the church with everything that we are. We love the gospel and want it to go viral. The gospel flag is at its highest point. And we salute that flag together.

I am sure that you can point to similar relationships in your own life and church. I encourage you to take a look around this Sunday morning. Look at how unique the gathering is. Consider what a group of interesting people they are. Then smile. Smile that God is still gathering people out of diverse backgrounds to bring about a unity in the gospel. A true fellowship and community in and through Jesus Christ.

And when you see that, prize it. Don’t let yourself raise any other flag higher than the gospel flag. We don’t build unity but we do protect it (Eph. 4.1-2). Do your part to prize and protect the true fellowship of the church by making it chiefly about the gospel.