The Power of a United Church
Unity - a coming together - is the very heart of The Believer’s Hub. Jesus prayed for it five times just before His crucifixion (John 17). He prayed, “Father, make them one.” It was obviously important enough to Jesus to repeatedly petition The Father, and yet as we see today, we have been denominationalized in such a way that we have effectively “othered” people who don’t go to our church and turn our face from churches that don’t look or act like our own.
The world sees our division, perceives our judgmental attitudes, and the maddening minutia that traps us in the sludge of hypocrisy and ineffectiveness.
Some days we do better at being Christ-like. We love on strangers, we pray for people we don’t personally know, we might even share Jesus or part of our testimony in an effort to encourage our neighbor. Other days, we turn up our nose at a denomination’s news headline or that Facebook post by someone who believes in the Gifts of the Spirit or at that Christian meme shared by one who we know still struggles with sin.
How to explain UNITY as a Christian - Francis Chan
What if we all kept Christ the main thing? What if people look different, walk out scripture in their own way, worship and pray differently than we do, but love and follow Jesus? Would that be ok?
What if we could see the heart of a person before we learn what church they belong to — or don’t belong to?
Like Fancis Chan said in the video, “I don’t have any answers as to how we are going to get all these denominations to be one. How are we going to get all these people who I've seen with the Holy Spirit in them to become one in a way that's visible? I have no clue. I just know I got to start with me. I just start with whoever's in front of me. My mind can't figure out the whole big picture. I just know it can happen because Jesus prayed for it.”
You are one Lego piece. Your church is a compilation of Lego pieces that create a structure. That structure, with the right mindset, can (and should) be part of God’s entire Kingdom. The image above isn’t an advertisement. It’s a visual of what we could look like if we understood we are one with Christ and in Christ. United. Fortified. Functional. Fierce.
We don’t have to all do the same thing or take on the same appearance. We just have to see that each of us, both individually and as organizations, are still one important piece of the big picture. There is great value in us all.
What full power will result as we operate in greater oneness? We can’t be sure, but if it was so important to Jesus to repeatedly ask the Father for it before He left this earth, it must be worth striving for.
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Jesus Prayed for All Believers in Matthew 17: 20-23
20 “I do not pray for these (disciples] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
We have all heard the term “Body of Christ.” Pastors have explained it well over the years. Pointing to the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, They describe the various parts of a human body and how they each serve a function. Bystanders don’t necessarily see the the work behind each individual effort. They see the outcome. The greater the unity in effort, the greater the outcome and experience.