This Is Us — Week Three
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that it’s a whole lot easier to love the idea of Christian community than it is to love an actual Christian community.
We love the idea of having brothers and sisters who encourage us, pray for us, carry our burdens, and help us follow Jesus. And we should! That’s a beautiful picture of the church. But then we actually join one, and wouldn’t you know it, the people are real people.
They have personalities that rub us the wrong way, opinions we don’t share, and sometimes they make decisions we think are just plain wrong. And, of course, we’re bringing our own share of problems into the room!
In Sunday’s sermon, I shared a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, where a character talks about how easy it is to love humanity in general while finding actual human beings increasingly difficult to love.
There’s a lot of truth in that. It’s easy to love the idea of the church. The actual church requires patience, forgiveness, humility, and sometimes a willingness to put up with things that aren’t our preference.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4 to bear with one another in love and make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Notice that he assumes we’re going to need to bear with each other! God isn’t surprised that putting a bunch of sinners together in one family gets complicated.
Unity Doesn’t Mean Uniformity
One of the things I love about Epiphany is how different we all are. We have people from different generations, different racial and cultural backgrounds, different economic circumstances, and very different church traditions. Some of us grew up Catholic, some Protestant, some Pentecostal, and some didn’t grow up in church at all.
We don’t all vote the same way, think the same way about every issue, or have the same preferences about worship, ministry, and a hundred other things.
And that’s a good thing!
We don’t have to be uniform in our thinking or our culture to be united in our love for Jesus and one another.
Our unity isn’t built on having identical backgrounds, personalities, or political opinions. It’s built on something far greater: Jesus Christ has made us His own and brought us into one family.
That doesn’t mean truth doesn’t matter or that we’re never going to challenge one another. Of course we will! But we ought to be able to disagree, sometimes even strongly, without forgetting that we’re brothers and sisters. We should be able to have a disagreement on Tuesday and still be genuinely happy to worship together on Sunday.
And I’ve watched this church do that beautifully. I’ve seen people show up at someone’s house to pray before I even knew there was a problem. I’ve watched you visit hospitals, bring meals, give groceries, and carry one another’s burdens without anyone needing to organize it.
That’s the church being the church! Not a group of people who have everything in common, but a people who have Jesus in common, and because of Him, have committed themselves to loving one another.
We’re Committing to Real People
This coming Sunday, we’re renewing our covenant together at Epiphany, and I think this is an important part of understanding what we’re doing.
We’ve been talking about five commitments that describe what it looks like to belong to this church:
- Follow Jesus — Our first allegiance is to Him, not our preferences.
- Grow in generosity — Learning to give ourselves and our resources for the good of others.
- Gather for Sunday worship — Making worship with our church family a priority.
- Be relationally connected — Actually knowing, loving, and being known by other Christians.
- Have a specific area of service — Taking responsibility for the work Jesus has given His church to do.
Notice that none of these commitments require us to have found a perfect church, or even a church full of people just like us. They require us to move beyond being consumers of church and become participants in the life of one.
It’s hard to bear one another’s burdens if we don’t know one another. It’s hard to learn patience if we only surround ourselves with people who never frustrate us. And it’s hard to grow in love if we walk away every time something doesn’t go our way.
Now, there are absolutely legitimate reasons to leave a church, and serious sin, abusive leadership, and harmful behavior should never be excused in the name of unity. But there’s a big difference between an unhealthy church and a church where everything isn’t done the way we’d prefer.
We’re certainly not perfect, and we’ve got plenty of growing to do, myself included. But I don’t want us to miss what God is doing among us because we’re focused on the things we’d like to change.
Will You Renew Your Covenant With Us?
This Sunday, October 25, is Covenant Renewal Sunday at Epiphany, and I’m inviting every covenant partner to renew their commitment to our church family for another year.
Before Sunday, take some time to think and pray through those five commitments. Where have you grown? Where do you need to grow? Are you ready to commit yourself again to following Jesus, gathering with His people, growing in generosity, building real relationships, and finding your place to serve?
We’re not asking you to promise perfection. We’re asking you to commit yourself to a people who are following Jesus together, with all the joys, frustrations, disagreements, and wonderful blessings that come with being a family.
If you’ve been attending Epiphany but haven’t become a covenant partner yet, I’d especially love to invite you to take that step this Sunday. Come learn what it means to belong to this church, ask questions, and consider joining us in these commitments. And if you have concerns or questions about renewing, please talk with one of our elders. We’d love to hear from you.
Join us Sunday, October 25, at 11:25 AM, at 400 Monmouth Street in Gloucester City, as we worship together and renew our covenant.
I love this church. Not because we’re all alike, not because we agree on everything, and certainly not because we’ve figured everything out. I love this church because I see the grace of God at work among a group of ordinary people who have been brought together by Jesus.
You don’t have to like everything about your church to love your church.
And you don’t have to be just like the person sitting next to you to love them, either.
Let’s renew our commitment to Jesus and to one another. I’ll see you Sunday!