"Jesus said: ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ (John 13:34-35) We need to be communities of love and we need to be seen to be communities of love. People need to encounter the church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter.Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community. We want to build relationships with unbelievers. But we also need to introduce people to the network of relationships that make up that believing community so that they see Christian community in action."
Tim Chester. Mission through community (read the full thing here)