Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Getting Along

We live in the age of the individual. Let’s face it, our culture is tremendously self-centered. With this self-possession comes competition. When a culture has its only focus as the individual, the community inevitably becomes the enemy. The American church in many ways has bought into this individualistic notion; the American church has been held captive on this aspect by the culture. One can clearly see this by all of our denominations. Just open a telephone book and you will see plainly on those yellow pages the individualism of the American church: Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Full Gospel, Assemblies of God, Reformed, Southern Baptist, Episcopalian, the list is nearly endless.

I recall of few years back being at a conference in which the speaker was a man by the name of Mike Pilavachi. He pastors a church in England; he is a very engaging speaker; very light-hearted and was a joy to listen to during those days (if you have heard of Matt Redman, Mike Pilavachi is the pastor of the church he serves). He said hard things, at times, but again with a lightness and humor to them. When on the final night he came out to speak to us his countenance was different; he was not smiling as usual and his step was not as vigorous. I will never forget the words he spoke to us. He opened by saying that he really felt like the Lord wanted him to share something with us. However, he acknowledged that he really did not want to--his message, he confided, would be hard to speak. Essentially, he said one thing; he said that God hated our denominationalism in the American church. He spoke passionately for a good 10-15 minutes speaking to us on this issue. He said that in England there are so few Christians that as believers they just don't have the time to get enraged about doctrinal disputes or legal ways of living. There, Christians from all different denominations often work hand-in-hand in proclaiming the gospel to the people of England. That was all he had to say; when he left the stage, you could have heard a pin drop. With our jaws dropped open, I don't think that there was anyone there that did not hear the seriousness of his words. It was deeply convicting. Since that time three years ago, I have thought of lot about unity and disunity in the church. H. Richard Niebuhr calls the “evil of denominationalism” the true “moral failure of Christianity.” In essence, denominationalism, at its heart, is divisiveness. But the church is called toward unity. The question then becomes, how can we as a church be more unified?


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