Diane was a member of the youth group I led as a youth minister-and she got under my skin. She wasn't ignorant, ugly, mean, weird, or vindictive, but she certainly was obnoxious. She interrupted conversations. She pointed out my mistakes-typos and grammatical blunders. She interfered when I led a group time. And like a four-year-old she was always asking "Why?" "Why do we have to be here at 5:30 if we are leaving at 6:00?" "Why can't we go bowling? We never go bowling." "Why isn't our group as fun as the youth group my friend goes to?"
I'm a rather mild-mannered guy, but I have to confess sometimes I wanted to strangle this teenager. I was tempted to tell her to show up at 6:30 for our 6:00 trip departure. Some days I prayed that her family would be transferred to another city or at least join the church her friend attended. It never happened.

I admit that I did not love this girl. I did not even like her. I knew I should, but I didn't.

I prayed before accepting this ministry position, "God, teach me to love." And then God brought Diane into my life, a most unlovable creature.

In the two-and-one-half years I spent with that youth group, I learned ministry tactics, church growth principles, leadership skills, but mostly I learned how to love the unlovely. God, in his infinite wisdom, answered my prayer. Through one obnoxious and unlovable teenager he helped me become a more loving person. He reminded me that the one place in the world love should permeate is the church. If Diane did not find love in the church, where would she find it?

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

If Jesus is our supreme example of love, it follows that love should be most clearly expressed in the church, a gathering of Christians united by the simple belief that Jesus is God's Son. Since Christians have been given the ideal model of love, and since we are instructed to follow Christ (in fact, to emulate him), then believers' lives should epitomize love. In turn, unbelievers would be desperate to connect with God's loving people.

But they are not. Sadly in some cases not only are unbelievers not drawn to the church, many believers are leaving the church.

Some churches bear a striking resemblance to the South Pole. Although the truth of God's Word is taught and error has no chance to survive, they show no corresponding obedience of love. The atmosphere is frigid. The spiritual temperature is sub-zero. Unloved and untouched, humans can't survive.

Our high tech world is frantic to feel the fingers of love. People are clamoring for attention and status but the root of their search is to discover love. Young and old, rich and poor are searching for satisfaction and meaning in life; but deep down they want to be loved. The church has what people want. We need to let the love out. We need to bring it out of hiding. We need to offer it over and over again.

What's Love Got to do With It?

Tina Turner's song What's Love Got to Do with It? contains a line that says, "What's love but a secondhand emotion?" Sometimes the church acts as if love is a secondhand emotion and gives it a second rate status. What's love got to do with the church? In a word, everything. Without love, the church should just close its doors and stop pretending. Without love, people die-spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically.

While to love and be loved is never easy, it is necessary if a church wants to be authentic. As physical beings we need food, water, air, clothing, and shelter for survival. As spiritual beings we need something deeper for health: we need to love and be loved. Without giving and receiving love we limp along in the shadows of life.

I remember watching a gut wrenching film years ago, Cipher in the Snow. The haunting true story is about a young boy who asks to get off the bus before his stop. When he steps off the bus he falls dead into the snow. The principal of his school asks a teacher to investigate the matter. The teacher looks back on the boy's life to discover that the boy did not receive affection at home, the other kids showed little or no interest in him, and many of the teachers did not go out of their way to affirm the boy. The investigating teacher concluded that the boy simply was not loved. He became a cipher, a zero, because no one cared. He died for lack of love.

If our churches demonstrated authentic love, our buildings would not be able to hold the crowds. People hunger for love. Love is the greatest evangelistic tool we have. Many have tried the pseudo-love of drugs, sex, and pornography. They are looking for, and in need of, the real thing. And the church has it. It is our responsibility to share it.

Love Will Find a Way

It is easier to talk about love than to love-especially when it comes to the Dianes in our lives. It is easier to love those who look, dress, talk, and smell like us. It is exponentially more difficult to love those who live in realms outside our comfort zones, even though they may attend the same church we attend.

Love involves work and energy. Ask any parent, any married person. Loving people-even in the church-requires time, sacrifice, self-control, humility, forgiveness, understanding, acceptance, and forbearance. Loving people is toilsome work.

Endless Love

If work is one side of the coin of love, the other side is time. You can't love without getting involved in someone's life.

Time is our most precious commodity because we have only a set amount of it. We can make more money, but we can't create more time. When we give people our time, we are giving them a portion of ourselves we will never get back. Time represents life.

Saying people are important is not enough. Believing in sound doctrine is not adequate. Preaching messages of love is not sufficient. We must prove our beliefs by our investment of time in others' lives. Love is best spelled t-i-m-e.

In church, giving money is a way of communicating our love. While financial stewardship is imperative, people want and need our presence, attention, patience, and focus-in other words, our time. Nothing can take the place of that.

What are you doing personally to make your church family more warm and loving? People like Diane are looking for love and for people who care. The truth is, everyone needs and wants to be loved. When people find a church where members genuinely love and care for each other, you can't keep them away. 

Rick Ezell is a freelance writer in Naperville, Illinois.