Sharing Faith as the Body of Christ

What Causes Church Disunity?  

With the starting up of a new church just about everyone is unified because there is a shared clear end goal in sight. Discomforts could exist because it was a journey, and that pilgrimage had enough energy behind it to enable us to live with those differences.  But once that goal has been reached, lack of common purpose began to creep into interactions within the group and it is at this point, that we can speak of disunity, a divisive lack of harmony among members.

This lack of unity, of common purpose puts at risk its entire mission to the world.  After all, who wants to be a part of a group operating along faction lines? How did it come to this?  Can the Bible offer us a better way?  It most certainly does.

1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought

Pondering the causes of disunity - communication

This problem of communication runs rampant within churches, and most likely, through every variety of grouping, of people coming together. Internal communication is overlooked because people are operating on the naïve principle that divisions can be fixed with coffee and a conversation. And yet as the church grows there are simply not enough coffee or conversation times to grow a church through godly sharing.  Those sharing times are essential but nothing more than starting points.

As it is today with many couples and families, we seem to have lost the art of talking face to face, preferring the mobile telephone to the more old-fashioned ways of sharing our thoughts.  Rich, profitable and respectful discussions of important topics are rare indeed.  If we apply this to the church, we need to keep in mind that our parish community is not meant to be a kind of social club.  We are not supposed to be the kind of group where the only discussion taking place is at the chit-chat level, talking that could take place just as easily in the local coffee shop.  When it comes to the Body of Christ, however, our discussions need to include the sharing of faith and spiritual aspirations.  We need time and be encouraged to talk about what is happening in our church community, the good and the not-so-good. 

We are called upon to be open to the graces God is offering us through our brothers and sisters in faith with whom we gather for worship and fellowship.

Because we are sharers of one Body with one another in Christ are we not called to a deeper level of sharing?  That shared Body is not just about our fellow pilgrims in faith.  Christ is the head of this body and the life we share with others is but the life of the Son of Man.  Our humanity is transformed because of the incarnation when God’s only Son humbled himself and became a man, fully human and pitched his tent among us. 

The Christ within me engages with the Christ in you and by the power of the Holy Spirit who makes all this possible, we become new people, the empowered Body of Christ shining into the darkness of the world.  This great gift is there for men and women of faith who dare to pause, to be silent, who sit patiently in the Divine Presence waiting to hear that soft, gentle voice calling out Samuel!  Samuel! Awaiting our response “Here I am; you called me.”

Listening and Hearing

Listening and hearing are lost gifts but without these we are unable to meet the vision of St Paul when he is talking to the Church in Corinth… 1 Corinthians 1:10 be perfectly united in mind and thought. For that to happen we must care about what the other person is thinking. And feeling. This is also what James had in mind when he urged his fellow Christians to confess our sins to one another….James 5:16… Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. This is more than listening.  It is hearing their inner souls calling out for the fellowship, to share the burdens in this common fellowship.  It is a soul yearning for healing, looking for guidance and seeking the grace of God that the other person carries for us. 

We rarely know the details of the gifts gives us for the sake of someone we might not even know.  What we do know is that in responding “Here I am”, we are collaborating with the divine works of salvation, and the world to whom we are sent, will find in us and through us, the divine gifts they can receive from no one else. What a burden!  What a glorious, magnificent humbling burden!  I am a gift-bearing servant of God and the gifts I bear are tailor-made for the person or people who need them. In faithfulness, we can be a part of God's answer to the prayers of those in need.

We never know what those gifts might be and how they impact those to whom they were directed.  What we do believe is that it is for this very purpose that we were knit together in our mother’s womb. For this we were born, for this, we were anointed at baptism and confirmation and it is for us the final words of the Eucharist are directed…Go in peace.  Love and serve the Lord. Be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Strengthened by Word and Sacrament, that we have just celebrated in fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we all leave the sanctuary of God and take up once more the call to make Christ known.

If we can grow our connection within the church and be willing to lay our sins in front of each other, then we will not have a problem communicating. The only real problem here is finding the kind of loving community in which we can confidently talk about our spiritual struggles and acknowledge our needs along with our failings.  That is an enormous challenge to all faith communities. 

This is exactly why we need to talk more about our faith, our love for Jesus Christ and our desire to bring the Good News to a world in need. We must be better at ensuring our relational communication is honest and clear, free of the kind of judgmentalism condemned by Jesus.  An even greater burden applies to those with leadership ministries within the community.  The better the communication, the sharing and engagement with all the faithful, the more likely St Paul’s vision will be complete. 

All of this is nothing more than striving to live out the teachings and prayers of Jesus at the Last Supper where he prayed…John 17:20-23  ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

And supplementing John, we have insights like those in 1 Peter urging the Church to be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble (3:8).

Bound together in the Spirit of God

This does not mean Christians must all believe the same thing, expressing our faith in one single way.  There is nothing wrong with disagreeing if we rigorously ensure we remain faithful to the revelations of God in the Scriptures and the teachings of the Apostles.  That apostolic faith is founded on Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone of the Church of every age.  

The first communities of the Church were united but maintained a robust engagement with fellow believers without contradicting the fundamentals. their faith.  They lived with a kind of unity in their diversity when it came to expressing their faith.  They achieved this not on their own but under the guiding and empowering grace of the Spirit poured out for them at Pentecost.  They worked at it, laying down the only kind of foundation capable of giving them the grace and to live in this counter-cultural and sacrificial way… the early Christians devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42).

The parish community is not called into existence to be a kind of social club where the only discussions taking place are at a chit-chat level of talking, the kind of exchanges we regularly have in the local coffee shop.  As it is with human families, our discussions need to go further and include sharing of our faith and spiritual aspirations.  We need time and be encouraged to talk about what is happening in our church community, the good and the not-so-good. 

Be perfectly united in mind and thought

Listening and hearing are lost gifts and yet without these we are unable to achieve the vision St Paul offered to the Church in Corinth… 1 Corinthians 1:10 be perfectly united in mind and thought.  For that to happen, we must care about what the other person is thinking, sensitive to who they are in the eyes of God in whose image and likeness they are created.   

We are called to look beyond the hurt and pain they might be directing our way, being willing to take up the cross and bear it humbly with the Lord Jesus. Why? We take up that cross to be one with Jesus in order that the other person may experience God’s loving mercy.  We might be hurting but we remain focussed on bringing God's merciful balm to those in need. It is a vocation to be as Christ to others. 

The epistle of James emphasizes the power of the sharing of prayer in the life of believers. It also reminds us that, even if we truly know and love the Lord, we still sin. While we remain in these earthly bodies, we will continue to battle with sin. While the power of Satan is indeed broken it does not mean there are no ongoing skirmishes along our pilgrim way.  The difference now is that Satan only has the power we allow him to accumulate. Nothing more.

Seeing the divine in the other

The origin of our English is found in the Latin word comes from the Latin word confiteor, which means "to admit" or "to confess” and sometimes “to say the same thing”. Confession in this sense means we are saying the same things about sin as does God. We acknowledge the “pain” our God experiences when we sin, we confess that we have broken the covenant with him and have missed the mark, the goal set down for us in the scriptures, particularly in the teachings of Jesus. We are called to be doing what we can to restore those things broken by what we have done.  It involves identifying sin for what it truly is; honestly acknowledging the offences we have committed. Confession also requires a turning away from sin, a turning towards God an an intentional walking along the one way of salvation.

If we can grow our connection within the church family and be willing to acknowledge our sins in front of each other, asking for forgiveness and healing, then we will not have a problem communicating.  The Holy Spirit in me empowers me and guides me to embrace the other, whoever they are.  We do not see them in terms of their sins and failing, but as God’s children for whom Jesus died on the cross.  So, let us talk about our faith, our love for Jesus Christ and our desire to bring the Good News to a world in need. We must become better at ensuring our relational communications are honest and clear. 

One Body sharing the One Spirit

The genuine unity of which Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus is not a desirable option but rather a divine expectation (Ephesians 4:4):  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling.  All who through faith and with hope in Christ are united as one body, sharing the same Holy Spirit, regardless of backgrounds or circumstances, come together around Christ as unique parts in a single spiritual community of grace.   

Therein is our spiritual challenge. Are the spirits flavouring and shaping our local churches and universal Church, spirits of division, exclusion and oppression or the one Spirit of unity, inclusion and liberation?

The strength of God’s people lies in their union with Him through His only-begotten Son, and their union with one another." The Review and Herald, July 4, 1899 [I am not negating our need to be in union with Christ, but we often forget that union with each other is also necessary!!! However, union with each other is not possible unless we are in union with Christ. The unity that comes is a unity in diversity, where the branches attaching to the same vine, have the same values, the same interests, the same goal. Let's seek such unity!  (Discipleheart.com)

Bishop Michael Hough                                                                                            February 2025