Day 21 - Protecting Your Church
Right before Jesus was arrested, and led away to be crucified, he prayed a prayer of unity. He said, ” that they may all be one even as You, Father, are in me and I in you…” John 17:21 The importance of unity and protecting it in our fellowships cannot be understated. Jesus himself knew how crucial it was. It’s our job to protect this precious unity of the believers in our individual fellowships..Division, disharmony, gossip and conflict can be destructive tools that break down unity. The very things that can mature us and teach us love, many times are the things that divide us and cause our focus to not be on what we have in common, but our differences. There is a saying, “what gets your thoughts, gets you…”
We all have different personalities, backgrounds, cultures, and races, but we share the same Father, Spirit, baptism, faith, hope and love. The differences are meant to be appreciated, not judged or criticized. The unique fact is that there is no “perfect” church, because the minute you get there, it’s no longer perfect! We have to learn to accept, value and enjoy each other with our differences, and thus protect the unity that holds us together.
Another way that we preserve and protect unity is by lowering our expectations, or at least not having unrealistic expectations. The gap between the ideal church in our mind and reality sometimes can be pretty big can’t it? Longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is evidence of immaturity. On the other hand settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency. Maturity is living in the tension…
Perhaps this is why God says to “be patient with one another making allowance for each others faults because of your love.” Ephesians 4:2
We become disillusioned with the church for many legitimate reasons. It can be a long list. Hurt, hypocrisy, neglect, pastors who fail, legalism, pettiness and many other reasons. Sometimes the hurts are intentional, sometimes they’re not. Whatever the reason, we need to realize that divorcing a church over the first sign of disappointment or disillusionment is a sign of immaturity. The next church you go to will have the same weaknesses and the cycle will just repeat itself. Every church should just put up a sign that says “No perfect people need apply, only people that admit they are sinners and need grace..”
There are four other ways that our reading today tells us how to preserve unity and protect our church.
- Choose to encourage rather than criticize.
- Refuse to listen to gossip
- Practice God’s method of conflict resolution
- Support your pastor and leaders.
We need to accept the challenge to protect and promote the unity of the church. This will please God and be the answer to Jesus’s prayer for unity.