During our group's conference in July we were asked to explore the idea of “Love Claims” for our interaction with people of other faiths as compared to more traditional, Western-based “truth claims.” (Please don’t misunderstand: We are not forsaking the proclaiming of truth!) For me, the whole presentation was the planting of a seed, a needed and somewhat provocative call to evaluate how we reach out to people. Three descriptive statements regarding “Love Claims” are:
-telling the message in love
-the message is: “God loves you in Christ Jesus”
-the goal: acceptance of God’s love, love shown back to God, and a capacity to truly love other people
Many of us have seen in conversations where we are proclaiming "the truth" how quickly the mood can become "we're right; you're not." The context slips so easily into "us" versus "them", doesn't it.
Our instructor for the "Love Claims" sessions reminded us (we who are so concerned about truth, and rightly so--for the most part) of the centrality of love in God's kingdom. In fact, "God is love." Such a focus on love leads naturally into proper discipleship: the two greatest commandments becoming more and more evident in our lives.
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