My mom’s side of the family knows how to laugh. I can still hear my mom’s laugh echoing across the auditorium during one of my high school plays. The funny line would drop, a general laugh would roll through the audience, and my mom—possibly sitting all the way in the back—would still somehow stand out. It was a little embarrassing at the time.
But that laugh had a history. It was a laugh shared by her sisters, and when we gathered at my grandparents’ house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, it came from a special place. There was always a feast. Then people would tear into presents, prep the coffee, go for a walk, open up a puzzle or pull out a game of cards, catching up on all the little things that had happened since we last gathered.
The house may have been a little cold at times, but the memories were warm. Lots of people coming together, sharing food, repeating stories everyone had already heard, laughing louder than necessary, staying longer than necessary. Looking back, I do not remember one spectacular conversation or even what we ate most years. What I remember is the life between us.
All those ordinary things somehow became more than their individual parts. And none of it was particularly efficient.
WHEN GOOD THINGS FEEL SECONDARY
That kind of shared life can feel strangely secondary in church because the mission matters. There are people who do not know Jesus. Neighbors need serving, children need discipling, people are hurting, and the gospel needs to be shared. Against that urgency, eating together, lingering over coffee, celebrating, or simply enjoying one another can begin to feel almost indulgent.
We may never say it this way, but it is easy to imagine church as the place where Christians prepare for the mission that happens somewhere else. We gather, worship, learn, encourage one another, and get equipped. Then we leave and do the important work.
There is something right about that. Jesus absolutely sends his followers into the world, and a church that never looks beyond itself has missed something enormous. But is the life we share together only preparation for the mission, or could what happens between us have a significance of its own?
Near the end of Jesus’ life, he says something surprising.
WHAT WILL THEY SEE?
John 13 takes place with the cross looming. Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet. Judas has gone out into the night. Jesus knows his remaining time with these men is short, and if there were ever a moment for one final missionary strategy session, this would seem to be it.
How will the mission continue when he is gone? How will the world know who these people belong to? Jesus tells them, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” and then adds, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
There is an everyone out there. But what Jesus tells everyone to watch is the one another in the room. Apparently, the world can learn something about Jesus by seeing what happens between his people.
That is a strange missionary strategy. Jesus does not say here that everyone will know because his disciples become brilliant communicators, build impressive ministries, or even because they direct enough kindness toward outsiders. Those things may matter deeply. But here he places enormous public significance on something we might have dismissed as internal church life: love one another.
MORE THAN A FEELING
Of course, “love one another” can become sentimental if we forget the room where Jesus said it. A few moments earlier, love had picked up a towel. Jesus had lowered himself and washed his disciples’ feet, and when he tells them to love “as I have loved you,” he is only hours away from the cross.
Jesus has shown us that this love can be costly. We have seen what it means to make room, lay down claims to importance, repent, and forgive. But stand back from those individual choices for a moment. What happens when people keep making them together? What begins to grow between them?
And that life is not only about enduring hard things together. There is delight in it too—meals, laughter, celebration, ordinary affection, the pleasure of being known and still welcomed. The life Jesus forms among his people can carry sacrifice and joy at the same time.
ALIVE, IMPROBABLY TOGETHER
Maybe “life” communicates something fuller. In 1 Timothy 6, as Paul urges wealthy believers to be generous and ready to share, he tells them to take hold of “the life that is truly life.” It is a striking phrase: there is a kind of life that is more genuine and meaningful than what is often experienced. And when experienced, it doesn’t close in on itself. It opens up.
That is part of what can feel so alive about a church. People give and receive. They carry burdens and celebrate good news. They linger over food, notice who is missing, make room for children and older people, and learn to enjoy people whose lives would otherwise have remained separate from their own.
Perhaps the most improbable thing is not that different people find themselves in the same room. It is that genuine affection can keep growing there at all. Familiarity can turn into irritation; service can become an obligation; shared history can become a ledger of disappointments. Even people who love each other do not automatically become more glad to be together with the passing years.
Yet sometimes, among ordinary people who still struggle and fail, something richer grows. They look forward to being together. They notice one another’s joys. They have stories to tell, losses to remember, jokes that make sense only because they have shared life for so long. None of that can be commanded into existence or guaranteed by a program. It is a beautiful thing when the love Jesus gives begins to produce not just perseverance, but delight.
BLESSED BEFORE WE BLESS
And that last word matters: delight. There is a difference between belonging to people because we ought to and discovering that we are glad we belong to them. Sometimes the delight itself surprises us. It was never something we could have organized into existence. It grew as we shared a life.
That gives an old promise a fresh edge. When God calls Abraham in Genesis 12, he promises that through him all the families of the earth will be blessed. “Blessed.” That’s a full word where delight takes shape. And we expect the second part of that. We are called to bless people. But let the words God says first sit for a minute: “I will bless you.” Before Abraham can become a blessing, he must receive one.
Imagine a Mercedes salesman telling you all afternoon how wonderful it is to drive a Mercedes. Then, when the dealership closes, he climbs into his BMW and heads home. You might wonder whether he believes his own sales pitch. Something rings hollow when we tell the world about the life Jesus gives but don’t really enjoy it for ourselves.
The surprise is not that God’s blessing should reach the world. It is that God intends his people to taste something of that blessing themselves. Not a flawless life, and not happiness on demand. But real affection. Shared joy. The kind of delight that can only grow when people actually live together in love. We cannot display a life together that we have never stopped to enjoy.
THE PARTY IS PART OF THE MISSION
Which brings me back to my grandparents’ house—the feast, the coffee, the cards, the stories, and my mom laughing loudly enough that nobody could miss her. Maybe there is something more significant about a table like that than we usually imagine.
That kind of gathering is becoming rarer. Derek Thompson recently highlighted survey data showing that the share of Americans who host friends or family at home at least monthly has fallen from 42 percent in 1975 to just 12 percent today (The Atlantic, 2026). In a culture learning how to entertain itself alone, a room full of people still making space for one another begins to look unusual.
Picture a church family gathered around tables after a meal. The children are weaving between chairs. Someone has told the same story for the third time. Across the room, two people who have walked through a terrible year together are laughing about something small. Others are listening, talking, celebrating good news, or simply enjoying one another. Nobody has organized these moments to make a point. They are enjoying the life they share.
Now imagine what someone looking on might notice. Not an empty chair waiting to be filled, but the occupied chairs: people who genuinely know and love one another. The teenager and the eighty-year-old have their own conversation. Someone’s sorrow is remembered without swallowing the evening. The affection is not announced as a church value; it is there in the way people turn toward one another.
This is the unexpected direction of Jesus’ words in John 13. He does not say that everyone will recognize his disciples by how warmly they welcome everyone, important as that is. He says they will know by the love his disciples have for one another. The love has its own life before anyone sees it, but it is not invisible. A relationship can communicate something to a person standing outside it.
The party is part of the mission. Not because it has been arranged to attract an audience, and not because gathering replaces speaking, serving, or going. But the laughter, the shared history, the affection that has survived disappointment, and the sheer pleasure of being together can make the life Jesus gives visible. There are some things only a people can show.
None of this needs to be staged for someone watching. The party is good before it becomes a sign. But when people outside the church catch sight of genuine affection—love with a history, joy that has endured difficulty, people unmistakably glad to belong to one another—they may glimpse something of the One who brought this people together.
The life between us is already a gift. And Jesus says the world can see him in it.
If this raised a question or something you’d like to talk through, I’d be glad to continue the conversation. Email Pastor John.
Return to Pulled Together