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What Unity in the Church Is and Isn’t
What is unity in the church? It’s something every pastor yearns for, but can we identify it well enough to preach and lead in such a way as to foster it?
When a church is divided, it is awful. Sometimes it spells disaster. It always spells exhaustion and hurt. Whether it is division between leaders, between members, or between leaders and members, division is abominable because it is a breakdown in the body of Christ and thus in the very identity of the church. So, unity really matters.
But what is unity in the church? It’s something every pastor yearns for, but can we identify it well enough to preach and lead in such a way as to foster it?
It’s Not What You Think
Sometimes we think we have unity when really we have homogeneity. There is little enough reason for dispute, for conflict because people are generally the same. When the country divides over a crisis–political, economic, ethnic, or any other kind–our whole church lands on one side. Look, unity! But not really. Homogeneity offers a comfort zone. It removes friction that might test our values, beliefs, and preferences. But it doesn’t lead to robust unity.
It is equally as easy to confuse niceness with unity. In the Midwest, where I grew up, and in the South, where I now live, there is a culture of niceness. It can easily lead us to believe that a church is unified. After all, there’s no conflict! Everyone is so pleasant. But being pleasant isn’t being unified. Niceness can’t stand up to challenges, suffering, or conflict. It is a veneer, not a foundation or a backbone. And Niceness isn’t honest because it precludes talking about hard things and ugly things, things that, in a real church, must be brought into the light so the Holy Spirit can work on them.
And it is easy to mistake unanimity for unity. Everyone votes the same in the members’ meeting. Everyone agrees on the decisions. But that can’t define unity. It may be a result of unity, or it may simply be an extension of homogeneity. In the worst cases, it is a result of heavy-handed leadership that makes people unwilling to dissent. Unanimity might be good, or it might not, but a church can be deeply unified without being unanimous on many decisions.
The Challenge of Unity
I love the realism of the Bible. The writers of the New Testament held no delusions about the easiness of church and church leadership. In fact, they recognized that unity is exemplified when people with seemingly unassailable differences come together as one in an unexplainable way. True Christian unity demands diversity, difference, and dissent. We know this from the commands the epistles lay out:
Love one another (John 13:34).
Build one another up (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
Bear with one another (Colossians 3:13).
Forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32).
Serve one another (Galatians 5:13).
Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)
Pray for one another (James 5:16).
Teach one another (Colossians 3:16).
Live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16).
Submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21).
Honor one another (Romans 12:10).
Welcome one another (Romans 15:7).
Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18).
Exhort one another (Hebrews 3:13).
Every one of these commands is in the context of brand new and generally challenging churches–Jew and Gentile together, men and women together, slave and free together, rich and poor together, political adversaries together. They assume difference and conflict, and Christians don’t need these commands if unity comes easily. We need these commands because churches are to be made of people not naturally inclined to like one another or even be in the same social spheres as one another. Churches are to be made up of people drawn together by Jesus, and every one of these commands reflects Christ’s heart and actions toward us.
Unity is rarely easy and isn’t always pleasant. It requires diligence, and we must fight for it. Acts 15 describes the Jerusalem council after numerous Gentiles have been saved. It says, “after much debate,” Peter stood up and addressed them. It wasn’t smooth sailing. It was marked by conflict and contention. But neither was it malicious. That church counsel was in intense debate over what? The centrality of the gospel–they were debating over this new and profound truth that salvation was through faith in Christ alone. Christ unified them, animated them, drove them, and opened the door for numerous outsiders to belong to their midst.
Consider how the council resolves. They hear of the works of God among the Gentiles (15:12), affirm that this is biblical (15:15-17), and agree to encourage and instruct these new believers (15:23-29). They are unified in Christ, and that supersedes their comfort zones and differences so that they can build up these new churches in Christ. And when these new believers received this instruction and encouragement, they rejoiced (15:31).
Finding Real Unity
So I ask again, what is unity in the church?
First and foremost, it is in Christ. Second, and not far behind, it is in Christ. And third, to paint the full picture, it is in Christ. If Jesus is “over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 3) and is everything we just reflected on and more, then that defines our unity in the church. We gather because of Christ, and our connectedness to one another is rooted in Christ. This is why and how people not naturally inclined to like one another or even be in the same social spheres can come together as family, as friends, as the body of Christ. And unless our churches are made up of different kinds of people, how can we truly gauge our unity?
Lest you’re tempted to think of this as idealistic, I would remind you that the same Jesus who gathered together a zealot (sectarian, anti-government, occasional violent tendencies), a tax collector (much loathed, generally dishonest employee of the government), working class laborers, and more as his closest friends and turned them into the apostles on whom the church was built works in your church today. The same Holy Spirit who saved persecutors of the church, Roman centurions, runaway slaves, Jewish priests, Philippian jailers, and successful Gentile business women is at work in your church today. Unity is neither the fruit of pipe dreams nor vision casting. It is the result of relentless, unapologetic, unwavering commitment to matters “of first importance”: Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ glorified. He is the one person, the one truth, the one reality that can make friends out of natural enemies.
I’ll leave you with these words from Dr. D.A. Carson:
“The church itself is not made up of natural friends.’ It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything of the sort. Christians come together, not because they form a natural collocation, but because they have been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance … In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.”
