Unity of the body:
When church leaders come together across the divides that is a great starting point. When they lay down their own agendas for their ‘personal’ church to grow we will have movement. The unity though has to move beyond unity gatherings, and church pastors.
One of the understandings in recent years that has developed is that of those who are called to pastor the city. (Let us think of pastoring more along the lines of a shepherd guiding toward new and fresh pastures.)
There will be such pastors within the various spheres of society: the health, education, business spheres for example.
The body is not united when we meet together. Unity is not something we do. Unity is a given – we cannot make it happen, we can simply deny it or sow seeds of disunity. Our starting point has to be that there is only one body.
I have a good friend who refused to become a member of a particular church: the reason being that if he were to join he would have to acknowledge that he had not already been recognising those believers as part of the body. By not joining he was indicating that he was already a member!!
Unity is a given and is in the context of where Christ has placed us.
.
3 Comments
I think I have an aversion to the word ‘unity’. I’ve seen it so used and abused, and used to abuse people. I struggle with it. Sometimes the intentions even appear to be good ones but still. . . still so often it is code language for conformity of thought and/or action. And we have almost made unity into a law. If we would just obey and have unity then finally God would have to act and bring revival! I’m not convinced. I’m not sure we really now what unity is.
I agree, it is a given. The issue is when we choose to behave in such ways that create disunity. But somehow there has to be room for disagreement, different actions, different leadings in the Lord, even some that really, really challenge my own perspective.
Perhaps unity is connected to our way of being holy. We perceive holy behaviour as a series of ‘oughts’. And those who agree with me in the definition of holiness and holy behaviour are obviously in unity with me. So maybe we need to have a better understanding of holiness and that might lead to a better understanding of what is and what is not unity.
I think God is pretty cool with all sorts of different ways of being a Christian, of being holy and of being in unity. He doesn’t get fussed by a lot of the stuff that fusses us. And by the way, I too chose, years ago, not to become a member of the church I attend. Why? Because I wanted to be a member of the whole body, wherever I was, at any one moment. I am a believer therefore I am always a member of whatever congregation and expression of Christ’s kingdom I happen to be with at the moment. Impossible not to be.
C.
I like the comments on unity and the issue of control. Unity around what? A centre that has been defined by certain people? Or around the cross? The challenge is about diversity too. And healthy disagreement. If we cannot give a ‘no’ horizontally can we ever give a full ‘yes’ vertically?
I think there is a fundamental difference between unity and like-mindedness. We may be “like-minded” with a few within a greater group. Explorer type congregate, as well as pioneers and settlers. We can all be unified in purpose for establishing His Kingdom on earth, we just have different functions in that process. In transition, the acknowledgment of our differences creates the natural flow through to new birth (transformation from unseen to manifestation) rather than blockage due to conflicts over what that new form will look like.
Blockages/resistance causes pain, acceptance and cooperation causes a natural acceleration.
E.