In continuation of promoting and presenting the union of all denominations, I get the distinct feeling, when talking (vs. blogging) to others about it, that the impression I may be relaying to others looks like, “Oh the present church is just not doing it ‘right’ hence the dwindling statistics we all know about Christianity today. Therefore, if we only start something new and do it ‘right’, then this new thing will just grow like wild fire, instead of what the present church is doing.”

Nope, nope. To unite anything is to bring the different aspects of that ‘thing’ together in order to unite and become one. Starting ANYTHING new is nothing but a further addition to the division at hand. It is really simple without the need for complications. Unity is about getting the different denominations across the board to indeed unite. I know I know, you either shook your head, smirked or right out laughed out loud 🙂  My response is this, “have faith my friend, for union is indeed God’s desire and as impossible as man thinks it, God, I believe, will have a huge smile on His face when we shed off our pride, stubbornness, arrogance, conceit, bullheadedness, self-interest, superiority and self-importance, and put Him FIRST.” It may take 20+ years, but without something starting now that + gets longer and longer and longer.

I have asked 10 people so far, all in church leadership positions from various denominations, the same questions that I listed in the last 2 blogs and will list at the end of many blogs to come, I hope. The unanimous and passionate answer is; “of course God does not desire to have so many church denominations or splits, of course not.” If your response to the questions is the same, then why would you yes you, not participate in asking the same questions!?

One answer I can come up with is; “the natural response of people will probably be to split the church I am at and create division and not unite.” There is a possibility this can happen, after all we have taken our marbles and moved to another church or started a new one for reasons WAY LESS than strong theological debates…… sorry if that sentence hurt a bit but bear with me. To avoid that, first we need to emphasize the “let’s have a family meeting” concept. Let’s discuss amongst each other and hopefully other denominations within the same community ask the following;

• Why do we have 7 belief systems in 7 churches in our town? The 7 is a random number 🙂
• We stand so firm on typically ONE thing to set ourselves apart from the rest….
• Would God rather that we minimize (SHED) the differences and maximize the common?
• Yes, of course…… Then how do we make that happen?
• Well, let’s lean on our church leadership to actually work together with ONE other church leadership on something in our community OTHER THAN let’s have a shared service at Christmas at this church or that one
• Work on something that will not trace back to WHICH church gets the credit

What’s that going to do? It will build, over time, a culture that focuses on what Jesus is doing in the community and not what THIS church is doing in the community. We, at least in my opinion, have sadly built a culture over hundreds if not thousands of years that emphasizes THIS church – MY church versus YOUR church. So now we have a culture of MY church with really no mention of God’s church in our day to day transactions, except of course on Sundays. I am not being facetious or making fun here, not at all. You know that the biggest tell tale of a culture is the language we use. Not English silly 🙂 rather how we use our language. So, I actually propose that each one of us watches what they are saying, and let each one of us count how many times we use things like;  at my church……,  my church has a small group….., my church’s music band….,  the tutoring program at my church……., I went with my church on this mission trip and ………., and so on and so forth. Then think about what we’re saying? Are we promoting God in the community or promoting “our work” (MY church’s work) in the community??? Then ask yourself; “if all the preaching I hear emphasizes that it is not what I do that matters……. then why is the culture I propagate and promote is all about ME and not about God???  The inner voice says, “everyone knows when I say MY CHURCH I really mean God.” Well, why not just say it to give the credit in plain speech to God and not to MY church!!! This way it is simple without the need for complications 😉 So again, union means going to the same church you’ve been going to and continue to ask the questions and encourage collaboration of the church you go to with another one in your community. Imagine, just imagine this is happening at 2-3 of the churches in your community……….. just imagine 🙂

I went on for too long this time, my apologies. So have you thought about these questions; Did God intend to have so many divisions within His church/ Is it God’s plan for man to fight over what Jesus said or meant/ Is God looking at us delighted about our divisions or sad? Simple questions begging a simple answer, and that answer is; we have created the divisions and we need to undo it and reunite. It is possible not impossible. Why? because it is indeed God’s plan for us to be united in Him. As in ALL united in Him and not within MY church united in Him. Till next week 🙂