Newsletter 5/22/2025

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

Corinth is having a serious problem. Paul questions their maturity and he takes aim at their penchant for divisions and church wars fueled by their allegiance to one leader or another. He calls them carnal and worldly, milk-drinking babies in Christ stuck in infancy and not ready for adult food. He’s heard about the envy and infighting. There are factions developing around the well known leaders of the movement. Some people are for Paul, some for Peter, some for Apollos, and others claim Jesus. What a mess. 

But this was 2,000 years ago. Thank goodness we’ve gotten over this kind of foolishness, right? Wrong. The church today is just as infantile. Battles over the direction of the church, feuds over petty issues, debates raging on YouTube, swaths of the church supporting this leader or that leader while dismissing and dishonoring another. And I’m sure we think we’re oh so mature and godly and standing up for what is right. No. We’re like children in a sandbox squabbling over who gets to use the plastic shovel. Majoring in minors and acting like brats while the world watches on and while sinners live unwarned. 

We are infected by the spirit of the world. Gossip, slander, whispers, contentions, disunity. Some would say we live in the Divided States of America. What happened to being indivisible as a nation? A better question would be, what happened to the unity of the church? Our chickens have been generally united as a flock. But recently the lead hens have been attacking and ostracizing one of the younger hens. I don’t know why. The chicken won’t even come out of the coop anymore. She won’t eat, won’t drink, won’t socialize. The unity is broken. And I’m desperate to research and figure out how to restore it. 

Unity can be very difficult. There is a false belief that it can somehow be achieved by avoiding conflict or confrontation. But that is not the case. As I learned at a conference I recently attended, conflict should be expected, especially when you are dealing with diverse groups of people. A room full of conflict avoidant individuals cannot have true unity. Their relationships will be superficial because it is through the interchange of ideas and feelings and life-stories that we grow in intimate connection. And inevitably there will be challenges as humans interact on this level. Creating or maintaining togetherness is tough because when issues arise we usually revert to whatever life hack we learned as a child to cope with the stress of dealing with dissimilar people who have egos just as big as our own. We fight, run, cower, freeze, or attack. This is normal. But unity requires more. 

Cooperation and consensus require the art of submission. A surrendering of the self to and for the whole. A willingness to put a pause on what one thinks and wants in order to consider how it affects the group. It is a willingness to set aside even the strongest of opinions and convictions. This is not the compromising of Biblical truth or the resigning to agree to follow the church into some fanatical or faddish movement, but a desire to develop unity and to protect it. To be deeply present with, to learn to grow in it in spite of conflict…not without it. True unity is the work of the Holy Spirit. The one mind and united thought and purpose Paul speaks of is not of human origin. It is the work of Christ in His church. And where Christ is found, there will be unity among His people. Through the disagreements, through the issues, through the conflicts, Jesus’ real followers will pray for and work to remain together. May this be our prayer…Lord make us one. 

Pastor Dean