I Dare You! Take Some Baby Steps Toward Unity

Renewal Task : Real Unity In the Body

The question here is : How can the churches work together to lead your neighborhoods to Christ?

If you're a pastor or serve in an official capacity in a congregation :

How well do you know the community's other church leaders? What have you done to get in touch with analogous leaders in those other churches (like, choir director-to-choir director, or librarian-to-librarian, or youth director-to-youth director, etc.)?

The challenge : develop a working relationship at least five analogous others (and gradually, all analogous others in churches that draw from your immediate area). This means regularly calling them, meeting them, sharing information, finding out what each other needs to do the churchly tasks, praying together, and just getting along with each other. Your church's mission will eventually gain something from the efforts. Please don't put it off.

Have you ever prayed for the success of other congregations in your town? Is this a part of the prayers your church does at its worship services and prayer meetings?

The challenge : start thinking of the congregations as the Body of Christ in your town. (And I definitely don't mean just the ones whose ministers attend your local ministerial breakfasts, or just the ones who have ecumenical agreements with your church's denomination.) Your church isn't going to reach everyone, or even most people. So if the people of your town are going to come to Christ, it will take each church reaching whoever it can. If all the churches build each other up, the little efforts will all start to add up. Ted Haggard calls it "raising the water level" of your town. It's an old idea, as old as Paul's letters. Don't you think it's time we got started on it?

Have you prayerwalked your neighborhoods with the other churches?

The challenge : get in touch with the other churches' prayer leaders (most of them have someone who has stepped forward for that role). Set a date for simply walking through key parts of a certain community. Stop at various points that relate to conflict, crime, spiritual deceit, poverty, racism, the occult, drugs, violence, or hatred, and pray there about those specific places and the people and happenings there. Finish by praying that the people in the neighborhood learn to love and follow Christ. You'll find that you have common concerns, and maybe you'll think of new ways to be God's answers to your own prayers.

Have you done youth events with other churches, and with parachurch youth organizations and other potentially-interested groups?

The challenge : No matter what we say we do, people will treat us according to what we actually do. Especially teenagers, who can smell hypocrisy from miles away. There are things the churches can do together even if theologies conflict -- praying, singing, reading Scripture, and enjoying each other. Since we can do them together, at some point we must, or the teen hypocrisy antennae will twitch like mad about our claim of being one in Christ. It also helps teens live Christly if they know of other teens like them who are doing it too.

So what if it's hard to do?

So what if you think you don't have the time?

So what if it might cause a ruckus in your congregation?

So what if you're afraid that noone will do it? In fact, so what if, at least in the beginning, noone else does it?

Since those aren't gospel questions, the challenges stand!! How will you face up to them?

The #1 rule for renewing the Church Universal, and any part of it, is for the Church to start being the Church as it's described in the Bible. I'm not talking about styles or rote habits, nor am I talking about making limp agreements tilted to some faction's ideological purpose. I'm talking about character, as shown in what we do. (We're called to live the 'fruits of the Spirit'.) Some of the key character-istics of that Church are its solidarity, its sense of common citizenship in the Kingdom, and its sense of common purpose. If that doesn't sound like the way your church lives toward other churches, then you are not being the Church. So, start doing things with other churches who are probably also not being the Church, and together start being a bit more of a Church, even if just for a while. Stuff will start happening. The Holy Spirit will see to it.