UNITY
ONE CHURCH. ONE FAITH. ONE MISSION.
“I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit.” – Ephesians 4:1-4
UNITY IN SERVICE
In these brief essays we’ll discuss how our unity impacts the three major areas of church life: worship, community, and service. In this discussion, we’ll explore our commitment to service as the body of Christ, and how our unity can enhance our effectiveness and spiritual formation in service. This is what we’re told from the book of James:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27)
Growth in the Christian life requires both input and output; and taking the instructions of the New Testament in total – it’s roughly a 50/50 split. We take in the Word, we ponder its truths, we pray, and we grow together in Bible study. But we’re also to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31), we’re to care about the poor (Matt. 25:35-40), and seek the lost (Matt. 28). Doing these things is not only good for the heart of every believer, it is a reflection that you understand the spiritual poverty you were in when Jesus came to you (1 John 3:16-18). We are to care for the marginalized because God cares for the marginalized. There are less obstacles in the lives of the poor to real faith in Jesus (Matt. 19:23-26), and the Lord intentionally chose the poor to shame the rich, the weak to the strong, etc. (1 Cor. 1:27-30). We follow James, we follow Paul, we follow the Lord Jesus in their care for those who are struggling.
Sometimes in the church we have the sentiment, “So and so cares deeply about this particular cause, and then in this other circle, someone else is doing mercy work in another way, and so we’ll just let them do that work.” This is the mission of the entire church, not just a segment – it is the fruit of real faith in the hearts of real believers. You are never going to be justified by works, you can’t earn salvation by doing anything at all – but real faith without a changed, merciful heart in tandem is antithetical to the Bible’s teaching. The thief on the cross had no time to bear fruit in his life of faith – his heart may have been changed for a moment before his death – but you aren’t in that position – you bear the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5) and that is tangible, visible, and wonderfully contagious.
As it pertains to unity in our body, our goal in service should be practically to love our neighbors as ourselves by considering personal hospitality and getting behind the good work already being done by our members. Our church supports some fantastic ministries in Campus Outreach, Common Ground Shoals, and Shoals Sav-a-Life. There will be continued opportunities to serve all three. We got some glimpses of that this fall and into December when we welcomed college students into various events and supported their events on campus, we took Christmas stockings to kids at Common Grounds, and we sang Christmas carols to neighbors in downtown Florence. They were all well-attended, it was fun, and I trust that it felt right to you to be pouring out our love for Christ in the form of love of neighbor. And it’s just more enjoyable when we do these things together!
With all this in mind, I’d like for you to get ready to be challenged with a new model for service in the future. We haven’t had much success with “work days” in the past at Redeemer it seems, but we’re going to change that. There are plenty of ministries that need our help, and we could serve our church by cleaning, landscaping, and fixing up things around our buildings. Other churches have quarterly “serve days,” like on a Saturday where we get into teams, eat some donuts, and get to work! We’ll bless others with our service, and we’ll grow together in unity. Remember, it’s not as though we have a church where you’re expected to be at all things all the time – life will happen and some will be there, others won’t. That is okay. But when we were singing Christmas carols to our neighbors we had 50 people! That’s a great size! Imagine if we had 40-50 show up for a “serve day.” That sounds exciting, and unifying, and God-honoring!