The church today should break out of its maintenance role and focus on growing. The church should come alive through the Spirit in proclamation of the gospel and significant church growth. As servants, we should all be desirous of seeing our churches grow, and new church plants developing to spread the gospel and worship the Lord. We should all be challenged by the message from Hebrews 12:14: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”
It is time for the Christian church to take a very strong stand on holiness; this emphasis should not be relinquished. The evangelical community needs to be reminded of this message, and so does our society. The world actually craves this message of holiness! As we strive after and pray for holiness in our churches, we should all highlight and preach it as Christians, for holy people are the best vehicles of evangelism. Part of being holy, as a Christian, is the process of finding out where hurting people are in our communities and responding to them compassionately. There are many needs around us that require Christians' involvement, care, and the gospel message of truth. Redemption in Christ is not the end of the story, for the restored world is still to come! In light of this, Christians ought to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in such a way that we do not alienate people from the gospel and so that we represent restorative relationships in our lives.