Unless My Church is Unified, Nothing of Lasting Value Gets Done

The more I work with people, minister in churches, and observe the Christian community, the more convinced I am that unity is the rarest bird on the planet.

Disunity is the norm.

Unity is the plan of the Lord for His people, the essential to getting anything important done, and the last prayer on Jesus’ lips in the Upper Room.

I once created a furor in a deacons meeting with the revolutionary suggestion that after they voted to put a matter before the congregation, all the deacons should support it, no matter how they voted earlier. For some, you would have thought I was suggesting they give up their citizenship.

“I am an American citizen. I have my rights. And one of those rights is to speak up and voice my convictions.” I can hear him now.

“You’re asking us to compromise? Never.”

I tried to explain, “We’re not talking about your rights; we’re talking about your responsibility as leaders of this church. There has to be a reason you’re trying to hash these matters out in here before taking it to the church.”

The day we began electing mature deacons the church began to have unity.

Leaders are to desire and pray for and model and protect the unity of the church.

Paul said to the Ephesian leaders, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

We have to work for it. Unity within a body of a hundred people is not normal or natural, must be sought for, and can be a fleeting thing. Unity is fragile.

In a class of seminary students, I wrote on the board one word: “Different.”

I said, “You would think that a congregation made up of disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ would automatically be of one mind. Instead, conflict seems to be the norm. The main reason seems to be that the people in the pews are all so different.”

“My question for you is: how are they different?” I began writing as they suggested ways in which the church members differ from one another.

Different sexes, generations, races, ages, views, experiences, theology, politics, background, education, socio-economic levels, likes, dislikes, goals, preferences, tastes, intellects, Bible knowledge, holiness, prejudices, fears, appearances, height, weight, body chemistry, values.

We could have done that all day.

Unity in a congregation of Christians is a miracle as surely as any healing or resurrection of the dead.

Unity among a people so diverse has to be a God thing.


In his book “Peacemaker,” Ken Sande tells of Bill and Steve, who were embroiled in a bitter fight. When Steve’s new home was found with numerous deficiencies, he brought a lawsuit against Bill, the builder. This was followed by a countersuit, months of legal discovery, and massive lawyer fees. Ken writes, “During a deposition, one of the attorneys finally realized what a contradiction he was watching: two prominent businessmen, both Christians, were growing increasingly bitter and hostile as each continued to justify his own actions and focus on the other’s faults.”

At the lawyer’s suggestion, Ken’s organization which provides Christian conciliation was called in. Eventually, Steve and Bill agreed to meet with a panel of Christian conciliators, among which was a builder, a businessman, and an attorney.

Long story short. The day after the disputed was settled, Ken Sande was returning some papers to the office of one of the attorneys. The lawyer asked, “What happened over there? These guys have fought so bitterly for over a year. But when Bill came in this morning, his attitude was completely changed. He said God helped him to see his fault. He told me the repairs he’s going to make.”

He continued, “When I pointed out what Steve had done wrong, Bill came to his defense! I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Sande agreed that it was indeed the Lord in back of the reconciliation. The lawyer responded, “Well, I guess it had to be God; I know that neither of these men was about to give an inch on this matter.”

It has to be the Lord.

1) God’s people must desire and seek for unity within the congregation. The leaders must treasure it as one of the highest goals of their work.

2) Unity is God’s heart’s desire for His people. Jesus prayed, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (John 17:23). Everything depends on our oneness, even the evangelization of the lost.

3) God’s people need to learn to recognize unity when they see it and not fall for its crude imitations. True unity of the Spirit is not necessarily organizational unity and definitely not conformity. It is not clobbering dissenters and not a cookie-cutter uniformity. Rather, it’s teammanship: each one doing his job, playing his role, following the leaders, curbing the instinct of selfishness.

4) Leaders must agree that they will deal with threats to unity whenever and wherever it appears. Selfcenteredness, murmuring, and rebellion threaten the unity of every organization, particularly the church. On the other hand, there must be provisions for sincere dissent and differences of opinion to be voiced and responded to.

5) We’re talking about a spiritual unity here. In our text, Ephesians 4:3, Paul calls it “the unity of the Spirit.” As with Steve and Bill, this kind of oneness is achieved only by the Lord Himself.

6) Think of unity as a harmony of various voices and sounds. I’m no musician, but I know enough to recognize that a symphony made up of 30 pieces of the same instruments would be boring. You might have unity but of the worst kind. What makes a symphony delightful is a wide variety of sounds blending together.

7) It’s all about each part’s relation to the Head. The orchestra members read the same sheet music and follow the same conductor. Christians have one Bible and one Lord, Jesus Christ Himself. “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace,” Paul says in I Corinthians 14:33.

When the parts of my body properly relate to the head, responding to orders from my brain and nervous system, each part works in harmony and symmetry with the rest. When this happens, I do not stop and give thanks for unity. In fact, I rarely think about the way my body is working. I just go to work. Unity is a means to an end: it allows the body to do what it was sent here for.

8) This little couplet has been attributed to half the Christian thinkers and writers on the planet, but my slight research lays it at the door of Philip Melanchthon, one of Martin Luther’s colleagues: “In essentials, unity. In differences, liberty. In all things, charity.” It’s so good, he probably took it from someone else.

9) Once unity within the body is a reality, it must be treasured, protected, and preserved. Our text instructs Christians to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.” And how were they to do that? “With the bond of peace.”

Bonds are fetters, perhaps ropes or chains intended to bind us. In the Christian community, we are tied together by love.

“Over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14). Earlier, Paul had told the members of the Colossian church that they were “knit together in love” (2:2).

10) Submission to leadership must become a finely developed art in the Christian community. Among other things, this means knowing when to accept the will of the others and when to draw a line in the sand beyond which you will not cross.

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

I’m not submitting to you, or you to me, out of respect for superior intellect or position, but “for Jesus’ sake.”

I asked a military community why they saluted officers when not all officers are worthy. “It’s the order of things,” one said. Another added, “It’s for the common good. If we were to allow each person to choose whom they would obey and respect, all training would break down and the unit would not be prepared to deal with the enemy in battle.”

We submit for the common good: for the glory of Christ, for the unity of the congregation, for the effectiveness of our labors, for the encouragment of each believer, and for the witness to the outside world. Oh, and for the indignation of the devil himself. We especially enjoy putting the evil one in his place.

11) Here’s a quote from A. W. Tozer: “One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than 11 dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.”

12) Nothing produces unity in a church like getting all the members working on the same project, headed toward the same goal.

Country people will tell you that hound dogs in the back of a pickup truck will fight and bicker among themselves. But, turn them loose and let them get on the trail of a quarry and they work in beautiful harmony. Owners of hounds often say that the sound of their dogs on a trail is like music to their ears.

Let the church find God’s purpose for its existence and get busy. Dissent will still arise, but not to the degree it did when the congregation had no direction.

In post-war France, Charles DeGaulle was trying to pull his people together. He said, “One can’t impose unity on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.”

13) It’s possible to have a type of unity just from opposing things, people, and trends. I’ve seen a few churches that seem to get their energy from attacking those who are trying to get something done in their community.

Somewhere I picked up the line that “politics is organized hatred; that is unity.” Well, it may be unity of a sort. But God’s people must not be characterized by what we are against.

The gospel of Jesus is called Good News for good reason. While we will necessarily oppose all that is unwholesome and deadly, we must be primarily known for our love and unity.

14) When outsiders observed the Jerusalem church deal with inner division in a prompt and positive way, they were impressed. After they had settled the matter of bickering over the neglect of some widows in the distribution of food, “the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

It should be our goal to exemplify love and faithfulness in the inner workings of our church to the point that outsiders want what we have, that they want in on what we have found.

15) This kind of unity will not happen automatically or overnight. Pastors and teachers must continually keep these principles and goals before their people.

Pastors and other leaders must work at demonstrating these principles when conflict arises in their churches, as it will. Along the way, they can then point out to others what they are doing, what biblical principles they are following, and how this is the “new norm.”

This is one reason pastors should stay at churches a long time. One reason many churches never grow in depth, maturity, or numbers is the rapid turnover of leadership.

In the words of Nietzsche–and the book title by Eugene Peterson of the same line–the goal is “a long obedience in the same direction.”

16) Let’s end with what may be the toughest verse in all the Bible, Hebrews 13:17.

“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Leaders will stand before God and give account for the souls they have led, have fed, and have shepherded. A scary thought.

Christians will give account to Him for their submission to the leaders God places over their congregations (see Acts 20:28). Another scary thought.

No one said it was going to be simple or easy.

Unity is a God thing.

2 thoughts on “Unless My Church is Unified, Nothing of Lasting Value Gets Done

  1. Paul was not happy with church in Corinth because they were taking side. We should focus in Jesus not our heroes of the faith.

  2. Joe, I think that you have repeatedly hit the mark on church unity with this piece and the 2 part series on 1 Peter 2. Truly, oneness is a miracle that requires and reflects the power of God.

    I think that if we, the followers of Christ, valued unity as much as the Lord, we would think twice before we broke the bond of peace. Jesus paid a high price for reconciliation and peace. (Colossians 1:20) And disunity, whether in a local congregation or the church universal, is bound to sow the seeds of disbelief in the world. I intend to pray more often that we might be one.

Comments are closed.