Putting the Pieces Together

On the night before Jesus was crucified, he prayed for his disciples, knowing that difficult times lay ahead for the fledgling church. But he didn’t just pray for them. He also prayed for us:

“My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one…so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-21, 23)

Several times in this brief prayer, Jesus prays that the church would be one – that we would be unified through the Holy Spirit and our commitment to love one another. But this unity wasn’t just something He wanted for us because it would make our lives easier. Jesus suggests that the Church’s unity would serve as proof to a skeptical world that He truly was from the Father and is the head of the Church.

Our unity is pretty important to Jesus.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t always seemed to be as important to the Church.

More often than not, it feels as if the Church is a 37-million-piece puzzle, fractured by countless disagreements pertaining to things like theology, liturgy, and worship preference. Sadly, rather than unifying around our shared faith in Jesus, churches have historically tended to fixate on the differences and propped up their own sense of superiority by pointing out the flaws in the other church communities around them. We’ve perpetuated this disunity by competing against one another, speaking negatively behind one another’s backs, and stealing one another’s members to swell our own ranks.

Now don’t get me wrong – despite our fractured state, churches have done a lot of good. We’ve shared the gospel, started ministries in our communities, and sent missionaries around the world. But at the end of the day, our disunity has undermined our efforts, because we were never intended to reflect the heart of Jesus by ourselves.

We’ve been acting like a puzzle where all the pieces yearn to reflect the picture on the box, but rather than doing so together, each piece is trying to do so on its own. What a futile endeavor. Think about how much time and resources have been poured into duplicate ministries, when we could have been working together; think of how much effort we’ve expended simply trying to outdo the churches down the street, rather than coming alongside them to care for the city together.

Every church community is a unique and valuable piece of God’s Kingdom. But if we hope to faithfully reflect the heart of our Creator into our community, then we need one another, because together we form a far greater, more comprehensive image of God than we ever could on our own.

That’s why, despite the frustration and uncertainty of this COVID-19 shutdown, I am encouraged. I’m seeing the Church in my city unite in ways I could have only dreamed of a couple months ago.

Before this shut-down, the pastors in my city were scheduled to share lunch once every couple months. Now, we’re connecting, planning and praying with one another every week via Zoom.

At the beginning of the year, we had hoped to get representatives from 10-15 churches to participate in the National Day of Prayer. Instead, we had over 150 churches from across our county join together in a 5-day round-the-clock prayer initiative, which included nightly online worship and prayer gatherings.

And there is no end to the generosity, not just towards the city but towards one another: churches with live streaming equipment are helping churches that don’t have their own. Churches who own their buildings are opening them to church communities who had been meeting in schools, so that they'll have a place to meet once we get the go ahead. Rather than competing with one another as church leaders have traditionally done, pastors in our city are sharing resources, finances, ideas and expertise with one another.

It’s an exciting time to be part of the Church in our city, and I know it is affecting the way our community looks at us. More importantly, it is affecting the way our neighbors and our civic leaders look at Jesus, because we are finally reflecting His heart together.