Thinking more about unity and dis-unity
I have been thinking more about unity in our local churches lately. In particular I have been thinking about some of the causes of dis-unity that I have seen over the years. Here is a few…
1. No leader – some churches function well without a full time minister, but others seem to struggle. The churches that I have seen working well in unity and moving forward together are the ones that have a strong leader and a supportive leadership team.
2. Gossip – gossip can be like a cancer that threatens unity. This happens when people don’t follow the Bibles teaching about sorting out problems through the right processes (Matthew 18:15-17). When people are more interesting in talking to everyone rather than the person or the leadership about the problem, it slowly erodes unity.
3. Lack of Biblical teaching – some churches I have seen do not have a gifted Bible teacher and this leaves hungry “sheep”. Often the people look elsewhere for teaching and find it in all types of places. When people are not getting the majority of their teaching from their home church, this can cause people to have different focusses.
4. Competing agendas – sometimes churches can have different clicks of people who think the church should go in one direction or another. Sometimes these people might try to stimy new things that are suggested because they don’t want it to happen or it goes against their personal agenda. They might also rally like minded people around themselves to push their own “barrow”.
Now these are just a few observation of things I have seen over the years. What is the answer to these problems? Well as you can imagine some of the above things are sorted out by having a strong leader in place who can teach the Bible to the people. This then allows people to grow personally and corporately and the things like competing agendas and gossip should in time naturally lessen.
The other thing I think that is important in being unified is finding and focussing on the things that bring us together when we meet. Some of the key reasons for our common unity are Christ’s death on the cross for each of us (Ephesians 2:14-16), our own personal unity with Christ (Galatians 3:26-28) and our one future hope that we all have in Christ (Ephesians 4:4-5). When we focus on these things, we find more common ground that unifies us, than the things that can tear us apart or cause dis-unity.
