Singing Heaven’s Love Song — A Quick Insight into “Your Church Is Too Safe” by Mark Buchanan

“This book is about…your church, in your community, discerning and acting in the authority God has given you to reduce to rubble — not with weapons of this world but with God’s quirky agenda and home-tooled methods, however those get revealed — all the walls that keep the kingdom out…”

– Mark Buchanan

Anyone who knows me knows how I shy away from legalistic religion and believe that most of what the body of Christ needs to do is be practical in a world that needs Him. This doesn’t mean I believe that we should run away from moral reasoning but that we should be more caring about the people around us and how to touch their lives in the way Christ would, with love. This is one of the reasons why at any point in my adult life, I’ve been part of one development organisation or the other, serving my community in any way that I could.

If you know me personally, you’ll know that I’m generally a giver. This is why this book has been both an affirmation and a compass for me in my walk of faith. It could not have come at a better point in my life. It has made me question some of the traditions we have in our churches and our “Christian” lives and honestly, the whole book is a sermon on love the way God intended it to be, unconditional. I think of 1 Corinthians 13 when I think of God’s love — a love that is patient and kind. A love that is above all and in all, God.

Mark refers to this as being the true walk of Christ and the true mandate of the church. Jesus speaks of this when he fulfils the law through his golden commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37–39, John 13:34–35). If only the church of today was more like the model church of Christ, the church in the book of Acts. This, as Mark puts across, is a clear benchmark of the church today. Love, unity, hospitality et al.

The past 6 weeks have been certainly transformational as I have studied God’s Word through the words Pastor Mark Buchanan shares. It’s made me question who Christ is in my life and how I am to truly live as He did. Countless times while reading this book, I’ve had to check the notes and refer back to the Bible itself, the source of the voice of God. This has made me study to show myself an approved workman of God (2 Tim. 2:15) and it has also revealed passages of scripture that I had otherwise brushed aside or some that I had never read at all (and probably wouldn’t if I’d not found a reference to them).

This, by no means, implies that I’m now a ‘perfect’ follower of Christ and have become the man that God intends me to be. I still fall short of the glory of God as we all do (Rom. 3:23) but I continue to work out my salvation (Phil. 2:14).