All tagged division
We all have the capacity to make relational choices that can help mend age segregation in our churches. Specifically, I want to offer one practice for followers of Jesus that can help all of us swim upstream towards greater unity in the generational body of Christ: the practice of listening for unity.
The posture reflected in Acts 15 is the same posture that I encourage my ministry students to practice in our classroom. It is the one that I pray they will eventually bring into the churches they serve. And I wonder if this is the posture that we are currently longing for many of our own churches to pursue.
Jesus didn’t come to establish a political kingdom, nor did He come to destroy earthly government. He came to redeem hearts, not reform systems.
We always have the choice as to how we see another person. We can resist evil, reject unrighteousness, and even contend for the faith without losing sight of the image and likeness of God in our conversation partner, our opponent, our enemy.
Rather than focusing their attention on improving worship, the sermon, or their meeting hall, the Church of Scotland hopes to train members to start new forms of Christian communities in their backyards, on hiking trails, or in their garages.
As U.S. Christianity becomes increasingly polarized, those in the dip of the canyon between the two sides are being slowly bludgeoned to death by the rocks meant for the other side.
You don’t need me to tell you that our world is fractured and divided. Truth is, it always has been.
As we begin to come back together, let us do the hard work of making empathetic contact with those whose opinions differ from our own.
There may be no better text for preaching in divisive cultural moments than the book of Ephesians. Here, the church sees a picture of all-encompassing unity.
Could it be that from this point on, the Christian church should be about movement and the spreading of this tent to the ends of the earth?
We like to create distance, even distance that is generated by falsity, to protect ourselves from being impacted by those we fear.
But we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. Created to be reconcilers in a hostile world. Created for God’s beautiful light to shine through.
Perhaps, by being humble and gentle, we can learn to extend grace by approaching conversations with a goal of learning and understanding another’s point of view.
Central to our faith story is the destruction of a nationalistic, racial, and religious wall. To lean into the kingdom of heaven, with all of its “now and not yet” is to live.
