Church that looks like Jesus

"Conclusion

The only church that will remain credible and relevant in the future is the church that God designed to be credible and relevant for all time.

It will be a church that gets no life from its distinctive beliefs and practices but rather finds all its life in Christ’s unconditional love. It will be a church that defines itself not over and against the world, but in loving relationship to the world. It will not be a religion that stands over the world as the moral guardian and judge of the world, but will be a tribe of highly unusual people who stand under the world as the servant of the world.

It will be a Church that is exclusively centered on Christ and that therefore holds its distinctive beliefs as addendums to this central conviction. It will thus be a gathering of people on a journey more than a community of people who think they have arrived. Because it is defined exclusively by the love it receives and is called to give, it will be a community where questions and doubts do not generate fear, but loving exploration. It will be a tribe that looks a bit like Jesus’ followers looked, with inquisitive and hungry tax collectors and prostitutes comfortably in their midst.

The Church of the future will have to be what the Church always should have been: a Church that looks like Jesus, ascribing worth to others at cost to itself. Being freed from ugly religion, it will be beautiful, as Christ is beautiful. For this is simply what the kingdom of God is."

That's the Conclusion to Gregory Boyd's article: The Religionless Church of the Future.