We celebrated my Mother’s 80th birthday this past weekend. That’s her there on the left. While her birthday is still a couple of weeks away, we surprised her by throwing her a party at her church. I’m always interested to see what other churches are doing, so I took this opportunity to look around. I usually visit larger churches while on vacation to see what others are doing that we are not doing. This helps me get an idea of what we may want to incorporate, or even compare what we may already be doing that they are doing.
In this case, Mom’s church is a smaller, denominational church. As I looked around, I saw some things that they were doing that I would like us to be doing. They had several large screen TV’s hung throughout the church that were used as teaching tools, or as ways to show announcements etc. We don’t have those. They had plenty of classroom space that was utilized for teaching. I don’t think that we have nearly enough classroom space. Their signage was better than ours. Everything was clearly marked with arrows pointing in the right directions.
On Sunday morning, while attending the morning service, I began to notice other things as well. They had old-style speakers hung with chains from the pillars along the side of the church. Their worship team sang everything at what I considered to be a frenzied pace – much faster than WE would have done the same songs. Not the same “feeling” as WE would have had. And while the songs were relatively newer songs, the style in which they were done was definitely an older, piano-styled version than WE would have done. I began to find myself becoming critical of my surroundings. They weren’t nearly as far along as WE were. They didn’t do things the same (better) way that WE would have done it. In short, the guy who is always preaching about substance over style began to get caught up in the style of worship.
Then the pastor got up to preach. His topic was unity. The scripture he used was from John 17. Here, Jesus is praying for us. He was actually praying for me when he said “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one…”
And then it hit me. These people are engaged in the worship. They like it. In fact, more of them actually participated by singing than our congregation does with our fancy lights, big sound system and polished band. The message was right on target. Not only does the church at large need to be unified, but each local congregation needs to have unity of heart as well. No complaining about the color of the paint, or carpet. No disagreement about how we serve coffee or if we even serve it at all. No petty disagreements about anything. Unity.
Jesus prayed for unity. Not uniformity.
I was comparing all of the ways that we were different. I was trying to look at ways in which MY way was better than THEIR way. In fact, it was the same way. We’re worshiping the same God, albeit in different ways. I should have been looking at the ways in which we were the SAME. When Jesus prayed, his definition of unity far surpassed mine. My definition is that we believe the same, work toward a common goal and recognize that we’re on the same side. That’s not what Jesus prayed for. He said “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
Tweet ThisJesus prayed that we would be one just as he and the Father were one. That’s a little different from my definition. Do Jesus and the Father ever disagree on doctrine, or the method in which they get things accomplished, or musical style, or sanctuary lighting, or the color of the paint or carpet or how loud the music in Heaven is? Do they ever discuss whether coffee should be allowed in the sanctuary while worshiping, or for that matter, whether coffee should be in the church at all? The thing is, there is a reason for unity. There is a reason why we should be unified. “… so that the world will believe you sent me.” Our unity will be a sign that Jesus is who we claim him to be ~ the Son of God.
I’m constantly amazed by our lack of unity on nearly everything. Just peruse some of the Christian blogs on the internet and look at the comments to back up my claim. Take a look at some of your friends’ Facebook posts and the comments they receive. We beat each other up all the time. We can’t agree on even the simple things. We get upset about the color of cups, yet ignore the fact that there are literally millions of people who don’t know how good life as a Christian can be. We’re not unified.
The next time you tend to be critical of the way another believer, or church, or pastor does things, remember the words of Jesus. We’re all in this together. Unity does not mean unison.
Since Veterans Day was yesterday here in the US, I thought that it would be pretty cool to write about veterans. Now, I’m not a veteran in the sense of having been involved in our country’s military. However, I remember being involved in “warfare” when I was in our youth group. We started getting together to play paintball. Knowing nothing about war, or strategy, didn’t stop us from splattering each other with paint. We began walking through the woods as the colonials did during the Revolutionary War. In a “skirmish line”. A straight line, side-by-side through the woods. Our battles would last a couple of minutes because we all got picked off pretty quickly.
This was in the late 80’s and we were also pretty big into spiritual warfare. At least as we knew it then. We got together every Thursday morning at 5:30 am to pray. For a bunch of kids, we had a good group turn out to engage the enemy. We would pray for an hour or so every week. We would get in the church’s big yellow and black bus and drive around our city praying. We would target specific areas of the city for prayer. We prayed for specific schools and events. And we saw results! We were encouraged by seeing answers to our prayers and so we would fight all the harder.
I remember during one of our meetings, our Youth Pastor was speaking on our legacy. He posed a question to our group. “When you die, what do you want your tombstone to read?” As I pondered this question, in my youthful fervor, I decided that I would like my tombstone to be inscribed with “He was a good soldier”. Be careful what you ask for! Little did I realize what being a good soldier meant. I have since learned.
My hope is that whatever you face today, or in the months and years ahead, you will also be a good soldier. Recognize that whatever you face, it did not come as a surprise to God. He was aware of it long before you were and has already mapped out a strategy for you to come out of the battle a better person than you were when you entered the battle. While it may be difficult to recognize now, the challenges really are good for you. Look for the lesson in every challenge. Learn it and emerge as more like the person God intended for you to be. Learn your lesson.
