Fighting for Unity

Growing up in the church, I was taught that unity was very important. Any time an issue would be raised in the church, the leaders would say that we need to be unified, which seemed to say, “agree with us”. Being taught this over and over again made the word “Unity” have a foul taste in my mouth. Unity seemed to equal uniformity.

Now that I am older, and leading a church, I see that there can be nothing more important to a church than for it to be unified. I, also, see that there is nothing more detrimental to a church than teaching uniformity to those in your worshipping community. This can be seen in an interesting aspect in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

I am sure you have read this book many times and probably memorized many different aspects of it, due to its great message to Jesus followers today. But, you probably never spent much time on the first verse, especially the phrase “including the overseers and deacons”. You might not know this, but this is the only time Paul addresses the elders and deacons of a church in the greeting aspect of his letter. He talks about elders and deacons in other letters, but he never addresses the letter to them. In Philippians he addresses the elders and deacons and then never instructs them again. This is because he wants to 1) recognize their authority over the church, and 2) make sure they are paying attention to the message behind Paul’s writing.

What is that message, you may ask–UNITY. The entire letter focuses on how the church in Philippi can stay unified. Paul wants to make sure that the leaders of the church in Philippi know that unity is important. As leaders one factor that can stop unity is to recognize that everyone else needs to “step in line” and “get on board”. But Paul seems to be saying, “you leaders are no different from anyone else, seek unity.”

Today’s church leaders would be wise to step down from their pedestal and seek to lead from around the circle, not from above it. I know for me this makes me appreciative of being 1) as an equal member of our church elder team and 2) as a co-member of teaching team. Too many pastors would never sit in their own church and listen regularly to the Word of God being taught by someone other than them. I appreciate our model (and the model of more and more churches) that believes that one of the best places for its leaders is in the worship service listening to the Word be taught. I know I have grown as a believer listening to others on the teaching team at Westwind. And, we convey a unified front by being a teaching team.

So, be unified in your church, but don’t idly stand by in a uniform manner. Challenge yourself to read through Philippians and see for yourself what Godly unity looks like in a church context. You may be surprised and challenged.