Lately a spirit of unity has been sweeping over the youth ministry community where I live. It seems that we’ve all come to the conclusion that if we don’t work together we’re like people swimming alone up a swift river…working really hard and not going anywhere. More than that, I think we’ve come to realize that in a city like Boulder, unity in the faith community speaks volumes to people seeking truth in their lives. Boulder is a place of deeply fractured belief systems. There is no one dominate world-view, and people are precisely attracted to living here for that reason. Being united in belief and practice stands out in sharp contrast to the world around us, and the power of cooperative truth can be a strong magnet to people looking for the Lord.
The last thing we need to have is a fractured Church. I think we’d all agree with this statement, at least in spirit, and I know that there are many people who have heartbeats driving them to promote unity in the Christian community. That is wonderful…and needed. I’ve been wrestling with this idea though, and I’m constantly confronted with the question of why. Why is unity so hard in practice? More importantly, what does Christ mean when he calls us to be one as he and his Father are one?
As I’m being led to work in unity with the people around me, I’m realizing just how hard it can be. I’m beginning to understand how little differences can actually become huge barriers in the process of gaining momentum. To begin the process of understanding each other and moving to a place of true undivided ministry, we can’t just expose the areas that we disagree on and attempt to reconcile them. This approach is many times impossible and even dangerous. We will always disagree. In fact, we should disagree…it’s healthy. Homogenous ministry approaches and worldviews can lead to blind-sided organizational structures and will miss out on reaching/communicating to whole groups of people. Without disagreement, it is impossible for us to improve, restore and grow each other as iron sharpens iron. An iron sword standing alone becomes dull and useless…as do we when we aren’t opening ourselves up to the criticisms (and even the slightly off-base ideas) of others. This leads us to the conclusion that it is not disagreement on it’s own that is causing so much strife within the Christian community …it is something much deeper.
Something is present in conflict that tries to take our differences (that which are inherently beautiful and part of our creation) and turn them into ugly irreconcilable monsters that threaten the very fabric of our being. I want to dive deep into mistrust and the ways in which it divides and conquers the body of Christ. Mistrust acts like a cancer cell in our spirit. It breeds on itself and multiplies until it takes over whole regions in our lives. It takes away the freedom and beauty that comes when the Christian community acts in a healthy way.
Mistrust is developed in two major ways as it relates to the ministry community: It comes from our own insecurities around who we are in Christ, and it comes out of a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God. When we forget the darkness that Christ called us and redeemed us out of, we can quickly forget that the Lord takes us first as we are and then begins the process of transformation within us. He takes all of our shortsighted ideas, our less-than-holy lives, and our brokenness, and in turn he gives us life. He lets us on to his team…he asks us to join his ‘club’. We forget that we are imperfect sinners called to live deeply in grace, and then we project impossible standards of perfection on to those around us that are still actively falling short. When they don’t stand up to those standards, we call them heretics and accuse them of watering down the gospel. Couldn’t this be what Jesus was partly rebuking the Pharisees for in Matthew 23:4 and Luke 11:46 when he mentions the burdens that they place on people without lifting their own fingers to help them as they stumble? It seems that one of the problems of the Pharisees was that they pictured a kingdom of heaven without the broken, messy, and redeemed people of the world. They were the epitome of mistrust. They didn’t trust each other, let alone other Jews and Gentiles. When Christ called lowly fishermen to be his disciples, heal, teach, and start his church, it raised more than a few angry fists.
All this to say, as we live in a kingdom of crazy, broken, and sinful people, we can’t let disagreements (however right and just we may be in the situation) become a foothold for disunity. Instead, we should act like Paul encourages us to in Galatians 6:1…restore each other gently. We need to pick our battles and any time we begin to worship the clarity of our theological pool, we have to remember that Jesus just might come walk through it with muddy boots on.
