The church is a gospel centered community on mission. How should this affect the way we speak to each other?
When we talk to people, we usually have an agenda. We want the person to think a certain way about us. The gospel frees us from needing people’s approval. We don’t need to be defensive at the first hint of criticism. We don’t need to manipulate. We don’t need to speak harshly, we can show mercy to others just as we have been shown mercy. Our primary concern in interactions with others should be their relationship with God, not their opinion of me.
We will not drift into gospel centered community, it is built by talking to others. With certain people does your speech tend to drift to gossip or never get beyond superficial chat? We need to make an intentional effort to engage other in gospel conversations.
Mission will involve speaking to other people about Jesus. When we speak to non-christians (or Christians) about God, the foundation should be pointing that person to Jesus, not winning an argument or debating a point. This will mean in some cases we need to have harder conversations than we may want to, but in other cases we may need to let something go that we are desperate to bring up.