“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me…I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me…”
(Jesus, John 17:20-23).
“… after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.”
-Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian
In the summer of 2007, my church building was destroyed by a fire. Within a few days another congregation in my community offered us the use of their facility for worship on Sunday mornings. We met in their traditional sanctuary while they were transitioning into a more contemporary worship style in their brand new multi-purpose room. This didn’t seem surprising at all, but an expression of love and care from a congregation that was viewed as a partner in our community’s gospel mission. But it wasn’t always this way.
In the same community—a generation earlier—the division and competition between the churches was so profound that when author and pastor Warren Wiersbe moved to Lincoln he remarked to the pastor of his new home congregation, “There’s something wrong with Lincoln. There’s something wrong with the churches. There is such a competitive spirit among the churches. I haven’t seen anything like this in the other cities that I’ve been to.” Then he added, “Why don’t you start a prayer group?”
They did start a prayer group and after a few years there were enough pastoral transitions that the group began flagging. It was revamped by turning it into a lunch group of like-minded pastors and the only goal was to get better acquainted, personally support one another, and remember that we all preach the same gospel of Christ and are on the same team. We would meet at one another’s church for lunch and conversation, but at least two or three times a year we would go out to a restaurant together. This was intentional. We all determined to be seen together, to pray for one another, to speak positively about one another, and to cooperate together when opportunities arose.
Opportunities did arise. We had to be okay with the fact that not everyone would be part of everything. That being said, through this group we worked on a non-denominational church plant, initiated a city-wide day of service, created and aired an Easter commercial (everyone participated), and helped each other in a variety of other ways. It’s common for someone to see me at the grocery store and tell me their church prayed for my church recently. The younger pastors in town don’t remember the days of competition and division. One of the pastors in the group commented:
My past experience in the last two cities I lived in…I wouldn’t call it antagonism, but there was a lot of competition among the denominations. And so there was a lack of trust, and the idea was, why in the world would you want to meet with somebody who’s your competition?
Many pastors have also experienced this kind of division and competition between sister churches in their own denomination. While this kind of change was taking place in my community my presbytery (a subdivision by region in presbyterian denominations) recognized the need for more cooperation and camaraderie. We put into place many of the same principles: pray for our sister churches, speak well of them, find ways to cooperate with them, use language that is relational (not always the functional language of business). I stopped dreading presbytery meetings and began enjoying them.
All such changes are ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit, but when I surveyed the pastors involved in this transition toward loving cooperation they noted several attitudes and actions that facilitated this unity in Christ and practical love:
You don’t cooperate with those you don’t trust. We made it clear that our unity was based in Christ and the good news of salvation in Him alone. We all subscribe to the historic orthodox teachings of the Christian Church.
Conversely, we agreed to disagree about non-essential things. ‘Non-essential’ doesn’t mean unimportant, it just means that good Christians can disagree about these teachings without suspicion and contention. In this particular group we would have disagreed about baptism, the gifts of the Spirit, church government, and a host of other issues, but we didn’t allow that to keep us from our unity in Christ.
There had been efforts to gather Christian clergy together in the past. There was a pattern: We would get a good turnout at a big event (for us that was 30-40 pastors) with a well-known pastor or presenter. The next meeting would be about half of the first. By the time we had a third or fourth meeting it was a small group. Large groups can’t provide the personal interaction of a small group, and most of these pastors craved personal interaction.
At its peak our unity group included nine pastors. On any given month there would be about six who could actually make the meeting. It was a small group. We had time to tell our stories and become friends.
When you get to know people in a small group setting you go from being an acquaintance to being a friend. We listened to the heartache of a brother whose adult daughter was dying from cancer. We listened to brothers go through ministry transition, personal illness, and family struggles. We pastored each other. When one pastor heard about my wife’s rheumatoid arthritis he asked if heat therapy was helpful. (It was). He gathered donations and told us to go pick out a hot tub spa; it was already paid for.
We all had different sized churches, but all served in the lead position and worked with some staff. We lived in a very similar world. We didn’t have to explain that world to someone else. They knew. This was a powerful unifier.
We represented various streams of evangelical culture, but we all had the same core mission and the same missional desire to make Christ known in our community. On average, the men in this group served as a lead pastor in this community for over 25 years. In the roughly 30 years that the group existed we made it a top priority to present a unified front for the gospel of Jesus in our city.
As the wildfires in Los Angeles were raging there were many reports of evacuation and exhortations to prepare a “go bag.” When the fire is at your doorstep you realize you may lose everything that isn’t in your go bag. You make hard choices.
In my city and my presbytery we experienced enough strife and pressure we had to ask, “What’s in my go bag?” Thankfully, as important as so many doctrines, traditions, and differences might be, we all had the same go bag: The gospel of Jesus. The proof of that gospel was in the way we learned to love one another.
Originally published in the spring 2025 Mere Orthodoxy print journal. To become a member and receive future issues, join today.