Unity Without Wrangling

“Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.…” Romans 15:5-6.  One of the most difficult things to achieve in the church, is unity or “having the same mind.”  If we all love Christ, and long to obediently follow him, why is there always strife involved? Reaching unity doesn’t come easily in any relationship.  Marriage; I rest my case.  We all come to Christ with the same love and desire, but because we’re uniquely gifted individuals, our forms and expressions of worship will vary widely.  Does God appreciate the diversity?  I can only imagine that he does. How boring it would be if we all gave God the same “store-bought” worship.  No time or talent involved, no thought given to what would please him, just get it over with.

 Now to the problem of achieving unity. As the church grew, and remember the church is the people of God, differences in opinion on how we should worship him began to appear.  It seemed logical to make things uniform, in order to “enforce” unity.  Obviously worshipers needed, and still need to be on the same page, biblically speaking, but as the centuries passed, the joy of celebrating was replaced with rote formality.  Individual expression was not encouraged, and the gifts of the Spirit were shelved having been replaced with a legalistic works mentality. Nowadays things are not a whole lot better.  We have many varieties of Christian churches, with different styles of worship, tradition and doctrine, but instead of bringing the unity God desires, we have division.  “My church is “the” church” or “Your form of worship isn’t enough, or it’s too much.”

In talking with a person recently, they told me, that because I didn’t attend his church, I was in essence saying his denomination was wrong. It is not my, nor should it be any Christian’s, intention to say any church, or method of serving God is wrong, that would be, well, WRONG! I do believe that is God’s area of expertise, and one day all of us will be judged for how well we operated, in the world, by spreading his word. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, reminded him that true unity is reached when all believers agree on the pure gospel, which, in it’s simplest form states that; Christ lived, taught, died, resurrected and will return for his church. He also said this; “Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.” 2 Timothy 2:14.  Interesting, we should stick to the basic foundational facts about Christ, and leave the wrangling over words, styles, traditions and doctrine alone.  So, leave your boots and lassos at home, unity can only be reached when we stay true to the God-created, not the man-made church.