God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Church discipline is a powerful tool in evangelism. People notice when our lives are different, especially when there’s a whole community of people whose lives are different- not people whose lives are perfect, but whose lives are marked by genuinely trying to love God and love one another. When churches are seen as conforming to the world, it makes our evangelistic task all the more difficult. As Nigel Lee of English InterVarsity once said, we become so like the unbelievers they have no questions they want to ask us. May we so live that people are made constructively curious.
Faith is the flip side of repentance. While repentance speaks of turning from sin, faith is turning to the Savior. The object of saving faith is not a creed, not a church, not a pastor, not a set of rituals or ceremonies. Jesus is the object of saving faith.