Making Christian Unity A Top Priority: An Appeal To Virginia Mennonite Conference

I submitted the following to various Virginia Conference leaders following our Winter Delegate session, where we covered a lot of hopeful as well as potentially divisive issues:

Dear Conference Leader,

In light of ongoing issues raised by member congregations that threaten to divide us, could we put some of our policy and polity deliberations on pause in favor of launching a year of prayer and discernment around a renewal of Christian unity in the church?

As one expression of this, we could have as our theme for this summer's Assembly something like "The Supernatural Power of One--One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism," with a wide spectrum of lay and ordained leaders speaking on topics such as the following:

1. "One Gardener, One Vine and Many Branches," 

2. "One Temple, One Foundation and Many Rooms"

3. "One Bridegroom, One Bride, and Many Celebrations"

4. "One Body, One Head, and Many Members" 

Each of the above Biblical metaphors suggest that the church is not a collection of separate "branches" or "body parts" put together and kept together by human design, but a miraculous creation solely of God's design. As such, we need to be encouraged to relinquish our sense of ownership and management of Christ's church, and instead see ourselves as a people brought together by God's invitation and kept together by God's grace.

In other words, we should be celebrating an organic unity created by the miracle of new birth and by the Pentecostal work of the Holy Spirit. We should see ourselves as an outpost of God's heaven right here on earth, a wonderfully diverse family being formed together with people from all tribes, races and nations. 

In this paradigm, divine unity is a starting point that we guard and celebrate, not merely an end point toward which we strive.

For this summer, table groups and workshops could focus on our really getting to know and love each other better as divinely adopted sisters and brothers, and not primarily as settings to discuss and debate issues.

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"Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?"  

Malachi 2:10 (NIV)