Sam Storms has written a fine book in "To Love Mercy: becoming a person of compassion, acceptance & forgiveness" (1991, NavPress). I'm not sure that title really encapsulates it, so let me offer a different title: "Being the Body: recovering church as encouragement, one-anothering, and being merciful". Those are the big points that I got from it.
This is a fairly practical book, so it sparked many ideas about what we can do as a church to become more like what we say we are. But Storms starts off with a hard word for conservative churches, and more specifically pastors, who are generally hiding behind sermons and not doing the work of loving their congregation, or others. This is despite the fact that Christians are hurting. "We are struggling with doubts, fears, crippling anxiety, thoughts of suicide, immoral fantasies, resentment, bitterness, depression, fractured relationships, feelings of isolation, and envy." (pg. 26) Well if you weren't depressed before, you are now! The answer is of course Jesus, but, not in a dismissive "I'll pray for you" kind of way. Storms argues that God wants to use us, as the Body, to help—in His power.
I'm reminded of Jesus' teaching of the Last Days:
And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’Matthew 25:33-40 ESV
This is quite relevant because a lot of people dismiss dealing with your own needs as selfish. Storms is adamant that we find real hope in Jesus, though:
"I will glorify God by satisfying my personal needs in Him" (pg. 56). I find his argument persuasive that we do have God-given needs—it's not like we should be Buddhists who deny all desires (pg. 57). We should enjoy God's provision, he continues, drawing on John Piper's work (pg. 58), as well as many passages of Scripture. It reminds me of the Bible College of South Australia's principal Tim Patrick's teaching that non-Christians feel the need for things like satisfaction, appreciation, and a sense of worth, but they go about fulfilling that need in worthless pursuits. Our work is not to condemn those feelings, but to show how Christ fulfills their deepest longings.
Storms also finds rich evangelistic grounds:
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.John 13:35 ESV
He draws out how we should not aim to be self-sufficient like the Stoic, independent of all others, with pride and defiance. Rather, we should be like Paul who learned to be content, not in himself, but "through Christ who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13; pgs. 92-3). Independence of other people's disapproval or approval came for Paul through dependence on Christ. This allowed him to serve others even when they hurt him.
The rest of the book is more practical, but not in the way I had thought. For example, the discussion on forgiveness is more of a command to forgive than a 'how to' as the title of the book suggests. For that, I thoroughly recommend 'The Peacemaker' by Ken Sande, which does go through the details of how to forgive, as well as what forgiveness isn't (I'm sorry, but...).
Nevertheless, it's this latter section which I draw the most out of. I'm inspired to create a church culture that encourages each other (pg. 123): and the formal 90 minute service is not the best place for that. We need to create a space where we know each others' gifts, talents and God-given tasks so we can encourage each other in them, and work together as the Body.
I love that he also picks up on the abundance of 'one another' passages in the New Testament (pgs. 147-150). If we're going to serve one another, love one another, care for one another, and admonish one another, then we must be involved in each others' lives. In my estimation, this means that we need to each ensure that we are meeting other Christians for this at least three other times in the week.
Getting highly practical, Storms says it's not okay (speaking mainly to pastors) to just wait for people to come to you—you need to set expectation that you want to meet, that your doors are open, and more than that, that here's a specific time and place that I'm expecting people to just walk up and chat. People won't necessarily believe that you really want to listen to them and help them from your heart until they can see it. This goes for mercy beyond the Body too, and so we need to set a weekly time (Storms didn't mention a frequency) to go out into the highways and byways and minister to people (pg. 180).
All in all, I think this utterly destroys the idea that following Jesus is pretty much just about getting the right doctrine, turning up on Sunday, and being 'nice'. It's a gentle but powerful book, focusing on what we should be doing, namely that church is day-to-day helping each other, being the Body that God made us to be.