Unity Project-Week 2

Hello All,

Today was our second week of focused prayer centered around the topics of: What is “The Church”? Is it an attainable and appropriate goal for the churches and individuals in Sedgwick, KS to be unified? If so, How do we do this? What specifically are we unified about?

Being honest, my main struggle in this venture is that I, like many of you, hate the stereotype of the church. In a world of broken lives and pain and struggles, for me the church has been a place where I have seen people (myself included at times) pretending to be ‘good’ or ‘ok’ amidst the varied broken stories of each of our lives. Having an outward appearance of moral standards and council that sets itself a part. This collective church turns into a caricature that is not appealing, and maybe more importantly not somewhere that you go for true healing. You see, the outward appearance of unity or morality or even love is not what I need when I am broken and asking for help. It says in the bible that the church is to be set apart and that it is a chosen people that is made ‘one’ in Christ. Chosen for what? Our outward appearance? To have distinct teachings or doctrines? This focus on the outside and how others see us is what I believe leads to much of the in-fighting and that is what the world sees: fighting over doctrine, divisions, and distinction and judgement based on outward appearance.

This side step from love and hyper-focus on figuring out what makes us Christians is what the apostle Paul was talking about in Galatians 5:14-15: “14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

In my opinion, as I approach these topics of unity, the world and the church, that is where we stand. “We” have destroyed each other and we have harmed the credibility of Jesus in the process. There is a great divide in our culture between the world and the current church and it is not a holy or healthy one.

This divide is perpetuated by the representation that we as Christians give to the world. The picture that we paint is divisive. We often hurt each other and don’t reconcile and we also devour each other with doctrinal debates and at times gossip. Contrast that picture that the world sees with this prayer by Jesus in John 17:21: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

So, what is this oneness?

How does the current church and many believers on the outside of church walk into agreement.

I don’t know the full answer to that question, but I do know one part.

We remember and accept that we were not born as sons and daughters of God. We were adopted. With the same joy that an adopted child embraces their new family and tells fellow orphans of the Hope of their own adoption, we can proclaim: ” I was adopted and you can be too! There are unlimited spots available!”

As we focus on these distinctions between ‘the world’ and ‘the church’ let us remember that we weren’t chosen for this adoption based on our outward appearance or superior moral choices, actually it appears that I was chosen despite those things.

Thus there is no divisive pride in this, there is simply an invitation.

Romans 8:12-17 “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”