When holiness leaves the building
What does it mean for a Christian to live a holy life once the church service is over? That question sits at the heart of Dr. Filimão M. Chambo’s new book, For the Sake of the World: Embracing God’s Call to Holy Living in Everyday Life. Published by The Foundry Publishing in April 2026, the 128-page book presents holiness not simply as avoiding sin or maintaining private religious devotion, but as a Spirit-empowered life that moves outward into relationships, service and justice.That is an important question for me because Chambo is not writing from a detached academic position. Born in Mozambique, he served in pastoral ministry and Christian higher education, became Africa Region director in 2009, and was elected a general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene in 2017. His leadership therefore belongs to a period in which Nazarene Christianity has increasingly been experienced as a genuinely global church. His book asks us to consider what holiness means within that changing world.
Holiness is more than what happens at church
The phrase “holy living” can easily become narrower than Scripture intends. We can hear it and immediately think about personal morality, church attendance, worship services, or the things Christians should not do. Those things may matter, but they do not exhaust the biblical vision.Peter writes, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15). The important word is all. Holiness is not confined to the sanctuary because Christian identity is not confined to the sanctuary.Paul makes the same movement in Romans 12:1-2. He begins with presenting our bodies to God and then speaks about the transformation of our minds. Christian holiness therefore involves the whole person. It changes how we think, what we love, how we treat people, how we use what God has entrusted to us, and how we participate in the world around us.This is where I find Chambo’s emphasis especially useful. The question is not simply, “Am I holy?” It is also, “What does the holiness God is forming in me become for other people?”
Chambo’s own ministry gives the question historical weight
Chambo’s story matters here because his general-superintendent ministry did not begin with a life confined to one institutional setting. Before his election in 2017, he had served as a pastor, educator, seminary president, Africa Region education coordinator and regional director. As Africa Region director from 2009, he was responsible for church planting and development across the continent.So when Chambo speaks about holiness becoming visible in community and mission, he is speaking from a ministry shaped by different cultures, churches and forms of Christian leadership. That does not make his interpretation automatically correct. But it gives the book a meaningful setting: holiness is being considered from within a global church rather than from only one cultural location.His 2022 reflection, “Holy Living Through Christ,” provides an earlier window into this emphasis. There he connects holiness with restored relationship with God and participation in God’s redemptive mission. The 2026 book develops that same direction more fully: holy living is personal, but it is not meant to remain private.
But does outward holiness replace personal holiness?
Here I think we need a careful distinction. Saying that holiness leaves the church building must never mean that holiness leaves behind repentance, prayer, worship, Scripture or the gathered church. Christianity cannot be reduced to social activism with Christian vocabulary attached to it.Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13-16 hold the two dimensions together. His disciples are salt and light, which means their lives are visible in the world. Yet that outward witness begins with belonging to Christ. The good works are not a replacement for discipleship; they are its fruit.This also helps explain the relationship between holiness and justice. Micah 6:8 calls God’s people to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. The three belong together. Justice without humility can become self-righteousness. Private devotion without love of neighbour can become religious isolation. Biblical holiness refuses both extremes.For Nazarenes, this distinction is especially important. The Church of the Nazarene officially describes sanctification as God’s work of transforming believers into the likeness of Christ and understands entire sanctification as a work of grace that empowers believers for “life and service.” That language matters. Holiness is not presented merely as an inward religious experience. It is intended to produce a life of loving obedience.
From the church building into ordinary life
This is why I think the strongest part of Chambo’s question is not the suggestion that Christians should leave the church building behind. It is the reminder that we were never meant to leave holiness inside it.The New Testament repeatedly moves Christian faith into ordinary relationships. Jesus says that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbour (Matthew 22:37-40). Paul tells believers that whatever they do, they should do it in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). James goes even further by warning that faith which never becomes action is dead (James 2:17).That gives holy living a much larger horizon. It reaches the home, workplace, neighbourhood, marketplace and public life. It asks how Christians speak to people who cannot benefit them, how they handle money and power, how they respond to suffering, how they treat people who disagree with them, and whether the love of Christ can actually be recognized in their conduct.And perhaps this is where the title For the Sake of the World becomes most important. The world is not merely the place from which Christians must protect themselves. It is the place in which Christians are called to bear faithful witness to Christ.John 17:15-18 captures the tension beautifully. Jesus does not ask the Father to remove his disciples from the world. He asks that they be protected from evil and then says, “As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” Presence and distinctiveness belong together.That is the question I take from Chambo’s book. Holy living is not holiness diluted so that Christians can fit comfortably into the world. Nor is it holiness locked safely inside church walls. It is a life transformed by God and then carried faithfully into the places where God has placed us.If that is what holiness means, then the church building is not the boundary of Christian living. It is one of the places where Christian living is formed before being carried into the world. The real test comes afterward: when worship becomes work, doctrine becomes conduct, grace becomes generosity, and love of God becomes love of neighbour.That is when holy living becomes visible.