Unity Within Diversity

Have you ever observed an argument between believers? A church split? A ministry disbanded? How about overheard gossip reverberate through the fellowship when something out of the ordinary happens?

Differences

Within the church of believers, there are many things we do differently. Musical worship can take many forms: contemporary praise choruses, hymns, or limited to only instrumental. Bible readings might be from the original Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin. Or the readings may be taken from the King James, a myriad of newer translations, or more contemporary expanded or paraphrased versions.

Remembering the Last Supper could be referred to as communion or holy eucharist, and it could include wine or grape juice. And, of course—more prominent in the last 50 years—the attire could be “Sunday best” or casual. When my motorcycle group does church visits, I have a patch on my leathers that reads, "These are my church clothes."

Regardless which way you gather to worship and fellowship in community, we all come together agreeing on that which unifies us: Jesus is the one and only Son of God born of a virgin. He paid the price for our mistakes when He hung on the cross. He rose on the third day and is alive today, sitting at the right hand of God. And, by accepting the gift—Jesus’ offer of forgiveness—we can share eternal life with the Triune God.

Different Yet United

Being united doesn’t always work out as easily as it sounds. I was in a church about 35 years ago where the descension was so thick, you could cut the tension with a knife, as they say. I changed churches. Weeks later there was a church split. It was ugly. Church splits always are. But the worst part was, my older sister stayed with one fellowship and my younger sister left to follow the group that exited.

At Thanksgiving a few weeks later, I spoke to everyone I’d invited ahead of time. I let them know there would be no airing of our dirty laundry—so to speak—because my mother would be there. She was not a believer and didn’t need to witness the display of disunity among us. I said if any discussion concerning the church split were to come up, I would quietly ask them to leave. Everyone agreed and we had a pleasant Thanksgiving, focused on giving thanks.

Unity Within Ministry

In motorcycle ministry we could find practices or guidelines that are not what we would have chosen ourselves. We may see them as either too lenient or overly legalistic: things like doing ministry in groups of two, women ministering to women and men to men, not having any patches on the back of our vest other than our ‘colors,’ and various opinions on women in leadership. Even words like vests vs. cuts, or highways and byways vs. highways and backroads can be points of difference.

But they don’t have to divide us.

The most important thing in any ministry is to demonstrate unity within the group. Especially to those looking for ways to discredit Christianity. Unity as believers is the testimony we show to those we minister to, and with. And, it shouldn’t be just a show of unity. It should be genuine unity.

Jesus was clear when He said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35. So, how do we show love? One expression of Love is graciously accepting our minor differences and focusing on what’s most important.

So, our words and our actions should never be engaged in conversations like, “You should say ‘cut,’ not ‘vest’,” or “no patches on your back besides your colors,” or “Go Tell It On the Mountain is not my favorite Easter song.” Remember it doesn’t take much for a non-believer, or someone seeking to find a faith that is real--not hypocritical--to witness the simplest of conversations and misconstrue it as disunity among believers.

A few reminders of just how powerful our words can be:

Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

Proverbs 18:21a, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…”

I Corinthians 2:4, “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

What are your thoughts?

Libby