Unity among Christians

Over the past month, I have developed more appreciation for unity among Christians. Not so much the kind of appreciation where I find more value in unity, but rather the kind of appreciation that comes from recognizing how big of a command it is for us to be unified. One appeal for unity in the Bible comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:10: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

For a group like FOCUS, there are some challenges with this simply because we get people from all parts of the country (world, even), different denominations, different cultures, etc. I can definitely think of some examples where we have not all agreed with one another, or where various divisions happened. Off the top of my head, I recall some examples where various people felt the need to leave FOCUS because of something disagreeable to them (doctrine or otherwise), and a recent case of people fussing about when FOCUS meets.

Sure, FOCUS has its own challenges with unity. How about the bigger picture though? As Christians, how do we reach unity with other Christians in other denominations? How does one church reconcile their doctrinal differences with another church so that they agree with one another? At least one of them has to budge from their position, but it doesn't seem like anyone wants to do that. Rather, I get the impression that church A tends to get its feelings hurt and split into churches B and C a lot more often than churches A and B learn how to be unified and become church C.

I might make this sound kind of harsh, and it's certainly easy to point at all the various denominations and say that we do a horrible job of being unified. Does that make us hypocritical though? Would we even see a ministry like FOCUS today if there hadn't been a big reformation back in the day, with people splitting off from Catholicism? (Note: I don't know a lot about church history, so please correct me if I say something dumb.) I find it hard to agree with certain parts of Catholicism, but on the matter of unity, it seems like I'm part of the group that originated from a division among them.

Is unity possible in the context of having multiple denominations? If so, what does that look like? If not, how in the world can it be achieved at this point? Somehow I just don't see everyone changing their minds and going back to Catholicism. (Another note: I don't mean to make this blog post about group X vs Catholicism, I'm just trying to think on a somewhat historical level.) Having every Christian agree with one another seems like a lot to ask when Christian A's beliefs about something are directly opposite from those of Christian B's. But instead of dealing with the letters A and B, it's more like we have a whole Chinese writing system worth of Christians with opposite beliefs about something.

It's kind of cool seeing the iamsecond stuff happening on campus, where all the Christian groups on campus are coming together to do something that just one of the groups on its own couldn't do. It also presents some of these challenges of unity, since we don't all have the same ideas on everything. How do we go about spreading God's word on campus? What will the small groups look like? What is our plan for presenting the gospel? What topics do we cover on Sunday nights? These are all things that we need to agree on if we are to be effective. I hope that the iamsecond stuff is not only a huge blessing for our campus, but for the Christian body at UTD as well.

Also, I wasn't originally planning on writing about unity, but somehow the introduction to the topic I actually wanted to write about got really long. So I'll probably spare your eyes for now and stick my original topic into a new blog post.

Spiritual Responsibility

As I read the March 2009 issue of Chess Life the other day, one of the articles struck me as somewhat profound. The article was about a chess training program that Garry Kasparov led recently. In the event you don't know who that is, he's one of the best (if not the best) chess players of all time. Here's an interesting excerpt:

"In general, appeals to authority don't work on Kasparov, and he constantly emphasizes the need to think for oneself. He doesn't once refer to theory, or any other authority other than his own assessment, analysis, and games. That's not to say he won't refer to other games - he does - but not to make them the final arbiter of truth."

Often in chess, people will study some opening or variation and then use it in their games, expecting everything to work out. People feel comfortable with the opening because their friends say it works out for them in their games, or some because some chess article that it's solid for black. While it's definitely useful to have some background in opening theory, relying exclusively on theory all the time might not be the best idea. Maybe the opening you decided to use is great for attacking styles of play, but you're more comfortable with positional chess. Maybe there are some holes in the opening that your opponent is very familiar with. You can follow opening theory all you want, but if it's not helping you win, what's the point? Just because some of the top chess players prefer a particular opening doesn't mean it will work well for you. Instead of using this stuff blindly, people need to look into it, see why it works, and do some analysis on their own to decide if it's good to use.

This article made me think of how ultimately I am the one who should take responsibility over my own spiritual life. It's really easy to rely on Ronnie, Brandon, Garrett, friends, core, FOCUS, etc. to keep me spiritually healthy. Yet how much time do I devote to my spiritual life apart from all these things? How often do I return to my apartment after FOCUS and do some research of my own about that night's sermon? Do I accept what others say without much question, or do I look into it to determine whether I agree with it? My answer to most of these isn't all that I'd like it to be. I think the attitude of the Bereans described in Acts 17:11 is a good example of what doing this right looks like:

"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

These guys took responsibility over their spiritual lives. They listened to what Paul had to say, while realizing that he was not the "final arbiter of truth." When I have to account for myself after I die, I'd much rather have concrete reasoning behind my actions than to say "My pastor said so."

The Great Banquet

Our core read Luke 13-15 last Wednesday. A story that stuck out to me was the Parable of the Great Banquet, in Luke 14:15-24. Jesus had just given some practical advice about doing things for people who will not or cannot repay you, such as inviting the foor, crippled, lame, and blind to a banquet. Then someone at the table says, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." Well, duh, right? How could that possibly not be awesome? Of course we want to be at that feast, right?

Then Jesus continues to tell about a man who was preparing a great banquet, inviting lots and lots of people, but for some reason, they all started coming up with all sorts of excuses:

• "I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me."
• "I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me."
• "I just got married, so I can't come."

What's with these guys? Did they not want to go to the banquet? I think probably they did want to go, but you wouldn't know it from their actions. Apparently, checking out their new fields, testing their new oxen, and playing chess with a new spouse (or whatever newlyweds did back then) were more important to them than going to the banquet.

What about us? I think we would all agree that "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." After all, this is what makes it worthwhile spending my entire life trying to serve others and obey God's commands. Do we really believe that though? Are we excusing ourselves from the banquet because we have "more important" stuff going on?

• "I just moved into a new apartment, and I want to go check it out. Maybe next week."
• "I got Rock Band 2 for Christmas, and I really want to try it out. I'll hang out some other time."
• "I recently got a job, and I'm really busy right now. I can't make it tonight."
• "I have 3 exams, a paper, 4 projects, and 15 chapters of reading to take care of this week. Sorry, too busy."
• "My friends are in town this week, so I'm going to hang out with them instead."

I think often we get opportunities to store for ourselves treasures in Heaven, but find reasons not to. This is not to say we're earning salvation by what we do, but if we've accepted our invitations to the banquet, shouldn't our actions reflect that? It makes me uneasy seeing how many people (for starters, let's take the group of people who call themselves Christians) have been invited to the real banquet, and then reading how few of the people in these parables actually went.

"Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." I wish we could comprehend how blessed such a man would be. If we did, wouldn't it be so much easier for us to accept the invitation? Wouldn't we make every effort, use every bit of our energy, every millisecond of our time living our lives in ways that let nothing get in the way of that banquet? It's time I realize how trivial my pleasures in life are, and how awesome the banquet will be.

Interviews

Ever since about a month or so ago, I've been getting a feeling like I should be interviewing approximately 4 ministry leaders. In no particular order other than numerical, here are some of the people I would like to interview over the course of the semester:

1. JVR - I don't know him very well, but I hear he plays or has played racquetball.
2. Bob Doyle - He gave me a birthday card once, even though he didn't know me very well. And he has played racquetball with me a couple times. Nifty eh?
3. Chris Rohleder - In most ways, he's a much more mature disciple than I am. Chris, start preparing your answers!
4. Brandon Worsham - I hear he might have something to do with FOCUS. Also, if the past is any indication, he has many things he can teach me.
5. Any of the other several people who have been awesome examples and leaders to me. Any of my past corefas and people I worked with at service projects come directly to mind.

Outreach Project

So, Robby had this outreach idea of doing something like hospitality week, only on a more consistent basis. For those of you who are unfamiliar with hospitality week, the idea was for teams of a couple of people to host a dinner for people they don't know very well (or at all), and spend an evening being hospitable. This would include making sure people feel welcome, that food and the likes are prepared timely, that conversation exists, perhaps a few activities are planned for after dinner, etc.

Anyhow, Robby and I intend to have a hospitality night, probably every other week on Fridays. We're not sure on times yet, but obviously it'd have to be before racquetball club (which is 7 - 9 pm). This would be something that people in our respective cores would help with (in terms of helping prepare, inviting people they know/meet, etc). I rather enjoyed the hospitality night I helped Robby and Eric with last semester, as I got to meet some people I didn't know, hang out with some I did know, and it was a unique way of serving people on campus. If all goes well, the first one of these will be some time this month.

First Post

mimetic \mim-ET-ik\, adjective:
1. Apt to imitate; given to mimicry; imitative.
2. Characterized by mimicry; -- applied to animals and plants; as, "mimetic species; mimetic organisms."

I wasn't really going anywhere with that, but it's good to know words, you know? You don't? Oh... :(