Unity: Force of Will or by Virtue of God's Spirit?

Over the last few years many of the believers in our area have been afflicted by the pressure to create unity. So, we read passages like 2 chronicles 7:14 and proceed to follow the prescription for God to “move”. We get together and do the things which “attract” the Holy Spirit. We (I will include myself in this though I want something very different) have an agenda of the things we want. We have been shown the Transformations videos ad nauseum (sorry George). Unity is like a carrot on a stick and we plod toward it.

So we get together. We sing some songs. We report on our ministries (most of whom can not and will not work together out of doctrinal and cultural issues). We are exhorted to witness to more people and asked how many people we have witnessed to today and are guilted into realizing we have not witnessed to enough or anyone for that matter today. Another voice may add, we are not following the right paradigm of leadership, we should be looking for leaders, strong leaders to disciple (indoctrinate?) and raise up so that they can find more leaders to disciple. If we are not raising up leaders then we are not discipling and God is not pleased or at the very least we are dead in the water, stagnant; missing the mark of what God is doing in this generation.

(I have lost track. Is this the Joshua, Daniel, Moses David, prophetic or apostolic generation? Has there ever been a Jesus generation? Just checking.)

I am tired of being told how to act out in order to inspire God to move. Pray harder, worship more passionately, then God will do His new thing. I will be in the River. It feels like just another form of paganism, any other religion of human device where we shout louder, sing longer, dance harder, cut ourselves, cry in desperation and reach the highest frenzies of praise... so that God will be happy and do our thing. Am I messed up? Am I cynical?

No!

I left the last unity meeting grieved, wanting to cry. How much was my own wounded ego and how much was the Spirit I can not discern. A portion of us are simply crying out for relationship. I want help walking with God, walking with Jesus. I want to know how others are doing it. How do we walk through victories and trials? How do we help one another through failure and despair. I do not need an expert or an opinion. I need a brother and a sister. I do not need a guilt trip or a dictator, I need a friend. I do not need another paradigm, I need a picture of the Kingdom of God, the reality of Jesus’ presence in our midst and in my life.

I am weary of unity on the basis of performance, watching well intentioned brothers and sisters perform circus acts for each other and our leaders. How often we as leaders reward the circus acts with a handful of peanuts instead of calling us back to simple humility and honest sharing. I have been one of the guilty ring leaders and seen many brothers and sisters crash and burn because they can not keep up the appearance and the pressure. This thing runs deep and has become a genetic flaw in our modern faith.

Unity is not something we can create, it is something we must preserve diligently; and it is by virtue of our relationship to the Father through Jesus and our relationship to each other. Moreover it is by natural consequence of the work of Christ. Our responsibility is a worthy walk, humility, gentleness, patience, suffering long with one another and love.

(eph 4) I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

How different that seems to me than creating a frenzy. Do not misunderstand. I love a passionate and exuberant time of praise and celebration based on who our incredible, incomprehensible, awesome loving God has revealed Himself to be. But never confuse the response of authentic worship and repentance with appeasement and works.

Unity is the reality that there is one Body and one Spirit. We tend to see our selves as bodies of believers (rather than parts of the one body and members of one another) each having an expression of the Spirit ( or the scriptures) by which we see ourselves as distinct rather than whole. Herein lies the need for humility. We are members of one another. We share one Jesus, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, One God and Father, the One Creator of All.

I began to write this to go along with the discussion about the 2 class system but i was over come by a rant......

I am a pastor, a shepherd. The very first thing that God spoke to me when I took on this role was about the Body of Christ. I wrote as song and sang it at our first gathering, a vision for what I desire as a part of the Body.

As a part of the body, I began to see that a pastor was simply one of the body parts. A role not a position. Shepherds walk with sheep. Jesus walked with His disciples and they experienced life together. In doing so Jesus was able to interact at all points of life when ever anything came up. The disciples experienced a new world view (the Kingdom of God) as their own realities were constantly shaken and challenged. Jesus modeled everything He taught.

A pastor as one of the five fold offices shares in the responsibility to equip ALL the saints for the work of ministry (not to just raise up leaders). We all share the great commission in common. The work of ministry is really the work of service. Many people want to be in the ministry but have no idea that to minister is to serve. A minister is a servant-- nothing fancy or powerful about servants.

The offices are:
....for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (eph 4)