4. Church and Christian Friendship
"Church" is a community of friends that is formed by virtue of its people being committed to following Jesus together. We follow Jesus, the Friend. And by virtue of our following him, we are a community of friends.

Being a community of friends, we seek to form a lifestyle that best reflects the depth and the significance of our friendship with God and with one another. Within this community, our worship, prayer, study, and everything else reflect our life together. Church is about the sharing of life.

This depiction must seem radically different from the "church" we see today. Far from being a community of friends, church today is about building an organisation and establishing "healthy and successful ministries". Never mind about depth of friendship, so long as our members participate in our community in a way that is characteristic of a "vibrant church".

In church today, it is not relationships which govern that which is birthed from within the community, but rather, set programmes which govern the functional relationships within the community. This must be seen as a sad state of affairs. That we have allowed our communities to pander into such a state is cause for regret.

The pastor of the church is to be the model of a friend. In fact, he is to embody the friendship of Jesus - the Friend - to the community. He is to be the incarnation of the very friendship that Jesus desires to have shared among his followers. The pastor is not a professional. He is neither to be seen as an expert nor an authority in anything; he is simply to be the embodiment of the divine friendship of God with his people. He is to care for God's friends the way God himself cares for them.