For the Sake of the City: When the Church Becomes the Answer

For thirteen weeks, we’ve been talking about activation. We’ve discovered that every believer carries a God-given assignment. We’ve been challenged to move from spectators to participants, to use our gifts, share our stories, make disciples, stand watch, sharpen one another, and ultimately allow what God has planted in us to multiply. But all of that raises an important question: Activated for what?

The answer isn’t found only inside the walls of the church.

God activates His people so they can carry His presence, truth, compassion, and hope into the places where He has planted them. For The Remnant, those places have names: Tumwater. Lacey. Olympia. These communities aren’t simply where we happen to live and attend church. They’re part of the mission field God has entrusted to us.

Your Prayer Life Has a ZIP Code

When the people of Israel were carried into exile in Babylon, they found themselves living in a place they never would have chosen. Babylon represented loss, pain, and displacement. It would have been understandable for them to endure their surroundings while waiting for the day they could leave.

Instead, God gave them a remarkable instruction:

“And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” — Jeremiah 29:7, NKJV

God didn’t tell His people merely to survive Babylon. He told them to seek its peace.

That word carries the idea of shalom—wholeness, well-being, and flourishing. In other words, God’s people were supposed to care about what happened to the people around them, even in a city that didn’t share their faith or values.

That same principle should challenge us today. Do we pray for our communities with the same seriousness that we pray for our own families? Do we pray for our schools, teachers, first responders, civic leaders, struggling families, business owners, and neighbors? Do we notice the needs around us, or have we become so accustomed to them that we drive past?

Your prayer life has a ZIP code.

Seeking the good of our city begins when the names Tumwater, Lacey, and Olympia become more than locations on a map. They become people we pray for, places we serve, and communities whose flourishing matters to us.

A Devoted Church Is a Visible Answer

Acts chapter 2 shows us what happens when the people of God live differently together. The early believers devoted themselves to biblical teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer, generosity, and meeting one another’s needs.

Their faith wasn’t confined to a weekly gathering. It became visible.

Acts tells us that they had “favor with all the people” and that “the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

That’s significant because the early church didn’t merely tell its community what Christianity looked like. They showed them.

People could see their devotion in the way they treated one another. They could see generosity replacing selfishness, community replacing isolation, prayer replacing fear, and sacrificial love replacing indifference.

That raises an uncomfortable but necessary question for every church: If our church disappeared tomorrow, would our community notice?

Not because a building went dark. Not because Sunday services stopped. Would people outside the congregation notice because something genuinely valuable was missing from the community?

Would families miss the help? Would hurting people miss the compassion? Would neighbors miss the kindness? Would community leaders recognize that a dependable source of prayer, service, encouragement, and hope was gone?

A devoted church becomes a visible answer when its beliefs become actions.

The Gospel Shows Up on Tuesday Afternoon

Church can become very good at Sunday.

We gather. We worship. We hear the Word. We fellowship with people we know. All of those things matter deeply. But the credibility of our Sunday worship shows up in what happens after we leave.

Throughout history, Christians have often made their greatest impact when they showed up during moments when others stepped away. During devastating plagues in the Roman world, Christians became known for caring for the sick, tending to the dying, caring for orphaned children, and serving people who didn’t necessarily share their faith.

Their theology became visible through compassion.

The same opportunity exists today, even if the circumstances look different.

It happens when someone notices the neighbor going through a divorce.

It happens when a believer encourages the exhausted teacher.

It happens when someone brings food to a grieving family, mentors a teenager without a stable influence at home, helps a struggling single parent, visits someone lonely, or simply treats an overlooked employee with dignity.

The gospel isn’t only demonstrated behind a pulpit.

Sometimes its most powerful expression happens on Tuesday afternoon, when nobody is watching except the person who desperately needed someone to show up.

From “Send Me” to “Send Us”

Isaiah experienced one of Scripture’s most extraordinary encounters with God when he heard the Lord ask:

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”

Isaiah answered:

“Here am I! Send me.” — Isaiah 6:8, NKJV

Every calling begins with an individual yes.

But there comes a point when a congregation must move beyond “send me” and begin saying “send us.”

That’s where Activation Season has been leading.

God didn’t spend these weeks revealing gifts, awakening callings, teaching us to make disciples, developing watchmen, sharpening believers, and preparing us to multiply simply to make us a stronger congregation on Sunday morning.

He was preparing us to go.

Our church vision calls us to equip the saints for the work of ministry, building solid lives, families, relationships, and a strong community grounded in the Word of God. That vision doesn’t stop at our doors. As active, energetic believers discover and fulfill their God-given assignments, those assignments inevitably carry us into the lives of the people around us.

The question becomes: What could happen if an entire church accepted responsibility for loving its community well?

Three Cities. One Church. One Answer.

Tumwater isn’t someone else’s responsibility.

Neither is Lacey.

Neither is Olympia.

These are the communities where God has placed us. They’re filled with people raising children, struggling with marriages, running businesses, battling addiction, grieving losses, making decisions, searching for purpose, and wondering whether anyone sees what they’re going through.

We do.

More importantly, Jesus does.

Activation means we refuse to remain spectators. Multiplication means what God has placed within us begins reproducing in others. And mission means we carry it beyond ourselves for the sake of people who may never come looking for us.

Jeremiah reminds us to seek the peace of our city. Acts shows us what a devoted church looks like when its faith becomes visible. Isaiah reminds us that someone must be willing to go.

Now it’s our turn to answer.

Not simply, “Lord, send me.”

Lord, send us.

Into Tumwater.

Into Lacey.

Into Olympia.

Not because everything is easy. Not because everyone will agree with us. Not because serving our community will always be convenient.

But because God has placed us here.

Three cities. One church. One answer.

For the sake of the city.

Go Deeper with Pastor David Sellstrom

If this week’s message challenged you to move beyond simply believing the gospel to actively living it, Pastor David Sellstrom’s books offer an opportunity to continue growing throughout the week. In The Authentic Gospel, Pastor David calls believers back to the Jesus of Scripture and a faith grounded in biblical truth rather than the changing messages of culture. The Way, the Truth, and the Life focuses our attention on Jesus Himself and what it means to follow Him as the only way to the Father, the source of truth, and the giver of abundant life. And in Weapons of Mass Distraction, Pastor David examines the forces competing for our attention and pulling believers away from the purposes God has given them. Together, these books reinforce the challenge we’ve heard throughout Activation Season: know Jesus, know the truth, recognize what’s distracting you from it, and become an active participant in what God is doing through His church.

The Authentic Gospel, The Way, the Truth, and the Life, and Weapons of Mass Distraction are available now on Amazon.

Weapons of Mass Distraction: https://a.co/d/00k8lw3r 

The Authentic Gospel: https://a.co/d/06KrgIQX 

The Way The Truth The Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJMF8RW8