Unity for the Sake of Mission

Bonnie and I had the opportunity to meet and sit with John Armstrong at a banquet we played for this week for a couple great organizations, Timberline Knolls and the Association of Christian Therapists. John just finished a book called Your Church is Too Small, where he writes about Jesus’s prayer for unity in John 17 and how the church can transcend some of its fragmentation in the next generation. I’m looking forward to reading it!

We’ve been thinking (and singing) a lot about unity at Church of the Resurrection this year as we try to connect with other churches in the Midwest to work toward the formation of a new diocese. Like John’s book, our process of becoming a diocese, which we’ve called “Unity for the Sake of Mission,” has taken it’s cue from John 17:20-21:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” 

I was talking with Lane, one of our leaders at Resurrection who came from a Baptist tradition like me. He said he thinks a gift of the Anglican church is the potential for unity among a broad spectrum of theology and practice. I have certainly experienced that to be true. Anglicans emphasize the core of the Gospel of Jesus as seen in the early creeds (status confessionis) and hold in tensions differing beliefs in other second order areas (adiaphora). It’s unity based on a center of historical, biblical orthodoxy that has been believed by most Christians in most areas at most times, rather than a boundary.

But even getting on the same page with others in our same tradition can be a challenge. In the Midwest there are at least three different kinds of Anglicans—the liberal episcopal church, the conservative ACNA church that will ordain women to the priesthood, and the conservative ACNA church that will not ordain women to the priesthood—and five different networks: 2 ACNA groups, 1 AMIA group, 1 Southern Cone group, and the Episcopal church.

John Armstrong said the thing that has driven him to work for unity during these last few decades is my generation’s desire to not fight over particulars of different orthodox traditions, but instead partner together to make a real change in the world. I’m hoping to attend John’s Unity Factor Forum workshop on February 2, 2013 in Carol Stream where he promises to teach some tangible steps in our work towards unity (sign up for the newsletter here to get the details).

But whatever these steps are, building unity takes a huge amount of time and effort. And it does not immediately translate into increased quantifiable effectiveness for the local church. If I were to begin to build relationships with my counterparts at many churches in the area, it would mean I would have to stop doing some part of the ministry at my church. It is so challenging to wait on a need or person you know for an intangible reality like unity among people you don’t know (and maybe won’t like) for results that you might not see or might not see for a long time.

How can we understand the work of unity in a way that will let our organizations, job descriptions, and budgets prioritize it? What if it was part of a pastor’s job description to build relationships with other pastors and Christian leaders for the sake of mission in a city? Larger church staffs could designated a specific staff member to be the liason to other churches and organizations for the sake of unified mission in a city.

In the New Testament, though churches met in smaller groups in homes (Rom. 16:3-5, Colossians 4:15), Paul often addresses all of the churches in a province as one church (1 Cor. 16:1, 19). Christianity Today is in the midst of series of stories call This Is Our City about churches across the country who are working together for their cities. It excites me to see churches in cities living out that biblical reality. It starts with believing Jesus when he says that mission and unity are inseparable, that when we live like one church on earth, we bring the reality of God’s presence and kingdom in heaven into our cities. If we’re not working towards unity in tangible ways, we might not really believe that it matters—that it affects our souls and the souls of others. Or maybe we just don’t believe it’s actually possible. At least we know what Jesus is praying for.