Parson to Person: God calls us to deeper unity, not uniformity

'If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2. make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6. who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7. but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8. he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:1-8

Many churches, including the one I serve, have their annual meeting around this time of year. It is a time to review the happenings of the last year and ask God for guidance and vision for the coming year. It is a time to be reminded of how we all need to be working together for the good of God's Kingdom.

Author Michael Kelley writes 'Uniformity might be easier … but as Christians, God does not call us to uniformity. He calls us to something much deeper - unity: The Bible never calls us to look exactly the same, function exactly the same, or use our gifts in exactly the same way. In fact, the Body of Christ can only function as it should when that doesn't happen - we must be different in order to fulfill all the various roles God has for us. But in the midst of that diversity, we are called to come together in unity. That coming together is why unity is actually deeper than uniformity.”

Kelley goes on to say that God is 'moving the church toward unity; urging them to focus on the goal of gospel spread both in us and through us to the world. But that doesn't naturally happen because the people aren't uniform; they are different, and so for them to be unified in the midst of their differences it's going to cost them all a little something.”

What it costs is the willingness to look beyond ourselves, to look beyond our individual church, to look beyond our denomination. We need to look at the bigger picture, where others can see us working together for the sake of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with a world that so desperately needs to hear this message.

Unity is harder than uniformity. But it will be worth the effort to make sure that the Body of Christ is one.