After the Sunday service: A Biblical call to deeper conversations

This article was first published by Evangelicals Now on 9 November 2026.

How do you use your words on Sundays? While you’re among your church family, what do you say and how do you say it?

There are times when our Sunday services see Proverbs 12:18 played out clearly before our eyes – as we either use “reckless” words that “pierce like swords” or as we find the right words of comfort and hope to say to someone who is struggling. And Scripture is clear that there is as much of a divine rebuke for the first as there is divine joy in the second (James 3).

Often, however, both our words and their consequences are more subtle.

When we’re chatting at church, our words are often polite – even measured. They can also be very distant. I’m not talking about those words we use in Sunday morning conversations with good friends; those are the people we gravitate towards and, bad days aside, there’s relatively little distance there. But what about when we’re having conversations with newcomers and less-established members of the church family? What about with those whose backgrounds or situations or interests – or all of the above and more – are vastly different from ours?

And what about with the person who (if we’re honest) we find strange or intimidating or exasperating or grating?

More bluntly, how do we use our words when our conversation partner appeals less to us than either our own company or the friend we’ve spotted across the room?

Sometimes our self-control slips enough that what we say does have a marked resemblance to a verbal grenade. But we often create distance in less distinctive and more socially acceptable ways – as we politely keep conversations both short and superficial, and so let our conversation partner register our reluctance to truly enter their world or to let them enter ours.

In this context, our words don’t particularly resemble a sword thrust – they’re more suggestive of an air gap. So, why do they matter so much?

Creating distance with our words – does it really matter?

Perhaps the most helpful answer comes from one of the New Testament’s favourite metaphors for the church. The epistles describe individual Christians as “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) which are being “built together” (Ephesians 2:22) as the church to make “God’s temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Enter Sunday morning, and here comes a congregation member (or maybe the person in question is you or me) who is once again speaking in such a way that creates distance between themselves and those around them.

If they are the only ones behaving like this, then the impact on the “whole temple” is relatively small. Still, their section of God’s “temple wall” will be weaker and draughtier than it should be, with all the consequences that such a reality has for them and for those in the vicinity, as well as the resulting dishonour it brings to the Lord

But consider this. What if many of us did – consistently and over a sustained period of time – choose to use our words to isolate ourselves? How many air gaps can our temple walls sustain before the building is so riddled with holes that the wind is careering through it and the whole edifice is shaking?

I’m not trying to make you despair – even if your church does feel particularly flimsy right now, our God has a wonderful track record in bridging divisions (Ephesians 2:14-16). But I do want to call us to think seriously about our Sunday morning trajectories, both as individuals and as local churches. With God’s help and despite minor and even major steps backward, are we generally using our speech to move towards our brothers and sisters? Or are we on trajectories which gradually push other Christians further away?

‘Speaking the truth in love’

At the end of the day – or more relevantly, in the middle of a Sunday morning – the goal of speech is not politeness. The bar is so much higher. We should be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) so that “the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16). That sort of love does not happen at a distance.

So, if your tendency is to keep other Christians at arm’s length, here are some questions to reflect on:

The first is: Why? What purpose is that distance serving?

Secondly: How could you change so that you are able to move towards other Christians?

And thirdly: How could “speaking the truth in love” enable you to share your life more deeply with other Christians – and help them to share theirs with you?

We will be exploring the topic of “speaking the truth in love” at our upcoming conference “Kingdom: The Church in a Fractured World” (10-12 March 2027 at King’s Park Conference Centre, Northampton). Tickets are available here.