Interestingly enough, whenever people ask what it is we’re doing out here in Tennessee, the question has always been followed by a sigh, “...wellllll...” and explanations that range from planting a church, to being missionaries, to even just a simple, “it’s hard to explain.”
Don’t get me wrong, we know what we’re doing, it’s just difficult to sum up in a way that makes sense to people who haven’t been on the same journey that we’ve been on. The strange thing is that there has always been this recurring tinge of guilt like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I’ve felt that if I can’t explain it, what makes me think I can do it, or even that I should?
Then I realized that the problem was not that we were doing something wrong, but rather that we were onto something right. Something so right, in fact, that it could easily become a source of pride and division, and I was instinctively shying away from the inevitable difficulties that come with this sort of work that we’re being called to: the work of pursuing unity in the Body of Christ.
Everywhere I go I see people — faithful people — pursuing and doing the work of the Body, sacrificing and toiling to see the Kingdom of Heaven made a reality on earth, but there’s been a consistent thread that belies a sinister problem within that Body and within that would be Kingdom: division.
It’s not always something blatant, nor is it even intentional, but it is there nonetheless. Every time a person starts a new ministry, every time a pastor plants a new church, everywhere that believers set out into Kingdom work, there is an opportunity to sow seeds of unity or to sow seeds of division, and our current church culture has been ingrained with habits and practices and systems that perpetuate disunity on a gargantuan scale. And yet, if we’re going to pursue unity, we can’t come at it from a standpoint of pointing out what everyone is doing wrong and expect them to all submit to some new system, because that would sow even more seeds of disunity. Like trying to embarrass a shy child into coming out of their shell, it would be counterproductive and have the exact opposite effect from what we desire.
So the answer lies not in decrying the ills and failings of the current systems of churches and non-profit organizations (while it is certainly healthy to continually examine our methods and shortcomings), but rather in sowing seeds of unity within, between, and throughout those systems. These expressions of the universal Church are filled with faithful people, people whom God is blessing and using mightily for His work, and to diminish them would be to diminish the very systems that led many of us to life and faith. No, the answer lies in encouraging, fostering, and developing unified expressions that function in intimate relationships with the existing expressions of the Church.
Within the Body of Christ, there are many areas where unity is already being experienced in small and even some large ways, and these expressions should certainly be encouraged. At the same time, there are blind spots where unified expressions of the Body can be developed that fill in the gaps in ways that no other expression of the Body can. These gaps are what allow us to live in the some of most affluent and “churched” societies on earth, and yet still have people falling through the cracks in despair and brokenness.
One example of a localized, unified expression is our current development of a lay led, multi-church recovery ministry. This ministry is being organized as a ministry of the local Church, with no one church or organization at the forefront of it’s development. It is also a ministry that has submitted itself freely to the influence and leadership of existing recovery focused ministries in our area out of a heart to be faithful not to “do our own thing”, but rather to find where God is already moving in our area and sow seeds of unity with those believers who’ve already begun the work.
Likewise, we are also in the process of developing a local 24-7 prayer room where believers of all backgrounds and traditions can come for prayer. Perhaps one of the most simple things we may be able to do in sowing seeds of unity is to pray to the same God in the same place.
While these are only simple examples, we believe that it is expressions such as these that will help shape and define the future of the Church. Our heart is to be people who serve in the cracks - within, between, and throughout the current expressions of the Body - pursuing the peace of the city and unity in the Body for the glory of Christ, for His name and His renown. It is our desire that our names, the names of our ministries, and the names of our churches would diminish, so that His name would be made much of. May we decrease so that He may increase.
“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
- John 17:23
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