Let’s Cry Out for Unity in Christ
I promise this is not an LSU ad. :) Our theme this month is UNITY IN CHRIST, and as I prayed about what to post, this visit came to mind from earlier this year. My friends Cheryl and Linabelle came to Baton Rouge for a gymnastics meet (Linabelle’s daughter is on LSU’s team), and their first night in town, we sat and talked at a restaurant for about four hours. Well, mostly reminisced, since we first met at church, exactly twenty years ago.
Let me back up . . .
Our family moved to St. Louis in the summer of 2002 and started looking for a church like the one we had in Dallas—predominantly black with solid, biblical teaching and an amazing children’s ministry. We visited a few churches with our young kids in tow and ultimately, the Lord led us to a predominantly white church with hundreds of members, and only a handful of black families. Clearly not what we had been looking and praying for. But we knew it was God when we went on and on afterward about the sermon, plus the children’s ministry was incredible. We figured we’d return the following Sunday . . . then the next. It became clear that the Lord was planting us there, though we didn’t know for how long.
I met Cheryl that very first Sunday, and was surprised when she told me she homeschooled her five children. In Dallas I had met a homeschooler and prayed that the Lord would never call me to homeschool. But after talking to Cheryl, by the end of service, my spirit was stirred. Homeschooling was suddenly something I wanted to look into. God was working already.
By fall, I was homeschooling both kids, which seemed weird in some circles. But I had Cheryl, Linabelle (who homeschooled her four daughters) and others at the church whose days looked like ours. God had given a steady source of support and encouragement as my friendship with these women grew.
And then there was the Registration Desk . . .
The amazing children’s ministry needed volunteers, and early on, I began working at the Registration Desk, the point of contact for families with kids from pre-school to sixth grade. Around the same time, Judy and Renee started volunteering there as well. And we immediately clicked. We often had to remember why we were there as we’d get embroiled in conversation and had to tear ourselves away to help a family (lol). We talked about any and everything, even race matters, and we talked frankly. We knew it was in love. We knew we were sisters in Christ who loved the Lord, and that that mattered above all else. We enjoyed our fellowship so much that we kept volunteering to work at that desk together—for nearly 10 years!
The desk crew at the release party for the Cling book, a few years after we left the church.
Yup. Ten Years.
Looking back, we had our own idea of the church we wanted to attend, but the Lord led us to a place where His will and purposes would be accomplished.
I had read Bible verses that tell us “you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 2:28) and to be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). But we were able to walk out unity in the faith in a way we hadn’t experienced before—on both sides. From small group gatherings to birthday parties and Bible studies, we dwelled together as one in Christ. We rejoiced with one another, wept with one another, and prayed for one another.
The Lord used us in the lives of white brothers and sisters who had never had meaningful friendships with black brothers and sisters (by their own testimony). And despite what my flesh preferred at the outset, my life was enriched by God-given friendships that continue to this day.
I share all of this as a backdrop, so you’ll know the work the Lord had to do in my own heart and life in this area. (If you read More Christian, you know He had to do a greater work before the things I recounted here.) But maybe it’s because of these things that my heart is burdened by the division I’m seeing in the body of Christ of late. Instead of oneness in Christ and unity of the Spirit, the divide based on race and political affiliation seems to keep widening, even stoked by people with platforms and ministries.
Is it just me? Is anyone else seeing this? Is anyone else burdened by this? I know that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). I know that we have to PRAY.
I’ve been crying out to the Lord for the Church to walk out Jesus’ prayer before He went to the cross: “that they may be one, just as We are one” (John 17:22). Would you join me in praying for unity among believers? That we would clothe ourselves in Christ above all else? Also, would love to hear your thoughts on this.