One of our future ABC students wrote on her application that one of her primary reasons for wanting to attend was because: "We, the Church, are a group of people of like mind, and the ministers teach us through God's Word, how to be a godly family." I thought of this in connection with John 6:44, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." I thought of how special our calling really is and how that calling unites us in one body.

Over the years I've thought about the expression "our culture" in relationship to the Church. I've realized that we cannot be classified by whatever part of the world we live in when considering our culture. We are the Church of God, and we have a distinctive culture because of our calling.

Don't get me wrong; we are not all alike, and we can be identified easily as being from certain regions by our accents, our dress, our music, etc. But in spite of these physical differences, we have a unique likeness.

There are several definitions of the word "culture," but I found one that is particularly telling on the Web site of the University of Manitoba, taken from an anthropology class. Culture: "The system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behavior that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning."

As members of the Church of God, we share beliefs, values, customs, behaviors to cope with the world and with one another, and we transmit them from generation to generation through learning. Our goal as a body is to achieve the oneness that we read about in the New Testament Church in Acts 4:32: "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul."

By worshipping together, praying for one another, attending the Feast together, singing together and fellowshipping with one another on a weekly basis, we truly form a connection that is stronger than our physical families and our physical culture. We have our own culture. And our greatest desire is to pass that culture on to the next generation.

The mission of Ambassador Bible Center is to pass on the truth to the next generation. It was encouraging to read these words from one of our young adults—"people of like mind" and a "godly family"—in relation to the Church. Our challenge is to live up to those descriptors.

What makes the Church so special? It is our calling that begins when God the Father draws us to Christ. Today we can express our spiritual culture by the way we act, the way we talk and the way we live our lives. We have a culture that we have to continue to pass on. By doing so, we will produce a godly family. UN