exploring how to and not to

do relationships

by ken e. read

1|one

2|family

3|love

4|risk

5|different

6|peace

7|loyalty

8|submit

9|power

10|grace

11|discipline

12|gifts

13|blessing

How many churches do you suppose there are in your city? Dozens? Hundreds? In God’s eyes, there is only one. Just as there is only one Lord, one faith and one baptism, so there is only one body. There is “the” church in your town. You are either in it, or you are not in it. So are your neighbors. It is time for Christians to start emphasizing our commonness rather than our distinct differences. Beyond that, it is time for congregations to start living out our unity.

Jesus prayed that his followers would be one, just as the Father and Son are one. There is a good case to say that unity (community) is his top priority. Living out our oneness is the best means of evangelism, for the world will know that we are his disciples when we love one another uncommonly. But living out our oneness is a much more radical concept than most modern American Christians imagine it to be.

MYTH #1: The best way to achieve unity in an organization is to establish balance on every committee, so that opposing viewpoints will cancel each other out.

It is healthy for any organization to have varying viewpoints represented; old and young, conservative and liberal, outreach and nurture, old school and new school. Most governments are set up with conflicting balances of power to keep the country from changing too fast or from one person or group getting too much control. However . . . .

TRUTH: We are not called to be of many opposing minds who balance each other out. True unity is measured by being of the same mind.

It may be wise for organizations to have members who check each other and balance each other’s votes out, but the church is not an organization. The church is a body. A church has different members, but all have the same head, the same heart, and must have the same mind.

There is a subtle but very significant difference between representing a group of members and representing a faction. Members are people who belong to the whole, while a faction is a divisive group seeking more power. Each member of a church is different, with different gifts and different functions. That is positive and healthy variety. But there should be no factions, no divisions, no competing schools of thought among us. Those are negative and destructive. Parliament and Congress may be set up with two sides of the aisle, so that both right and left are heard, but that is not unity.

Paul addressed the divisions of the church in Corinth . He opens his letter by noting that they have every spiritual gift and are fully equipped by the Spirit, but immediately he then appeals to them to get over their divisiveness. They were quarreling over their source of their conversion, and acting like “mere men” who did not have the Holy Spirit. Some were “of Paul,” others “of Apollos,” or “of Cephas” or (my favorite) “of Christ.”

Notice that Paul’s advice is not to start competing denominations, or even for the church to break into small groups that cater to their immaturity. Then they would continue to be “mere men.” Rather, he pleads that they all “agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.”[i] That’s a pretty strong unity. In spite of having different backgrounds, they arrive at Christ together.

unity in the assembly

When we take the Lord’s Supper together, it is meant to be a reminder and a symbol of our unity. An ancient Eucharistic prayer says that just as grain was once scattered over the fields and has now been gathered together to become one loaf, so too have we been brought from diverse places to be made one. We are no longer separable. We eat of one loaf, says Paul when describing the Table.[ii]

In many of our churches, we use tiny, individual loaves. Individual wafers or squares may seem more sanitary, more convenient, and less expensive, but I believe they also symbolize our stubborn individualism. We are small, stale, self-contained loaves who happen to have been dumped into the same tray, rather than intermingling and indivisibly one.

Likewise, we drink, not from one cup, but from convenient, sanitary individual cups. We are homogenized, sterilized, and leaven-free. We are tasteless crackers and pasteurized grape juice. Perhaps our symbols have even more symbolism than we intend. Imagine a family gathering in which everyone gets little individual servings, rather than eating “family style.” Would such a meal seem distant and formal in your house?

Most churches measure themselves by counting people at their Sunday assembly. Counting people can tell us which members are “active” and which are absent. By knowing numbers, we can know if we are growing, compared to last year. And numbers help us know how we compare to other churches. But I wonder how God counts our attendance on Sundays?[iii]

Only the Good Shepherd knows those who are truly his, and he calls each by name. When God counts us on Sundays, his numbers add up to one. Jesus prayed for us to be one, not for us to be many. When David counted the fighting men, I wonder if his motivation was the same sin that we have when we count on Sunday mornings? Do we take pride and gain esteem and confidence by increasing numbers?[iv] We would do so much better if we were to operate more in Acts than in Numbers.

When we sing, it is to one another. When we pray, we address Our Father. Whatever we do in worship, it should be together as one. The world will be won only when the church is one.

We pray as more than a collection of individual voices. The early church lifted up their voices “together” (in unison) in prayer.[v] Jesus said that when two agree about anything on earth, it will be done by his Father in heaven.[vi] Jesus gave himself for “her,” (his church), not for “them” (his individual people).[vii] You alone are not the body of Christ, and you are not the temple of the Holy Spirit, but we are. So if you ever feel that heaven and earth are depending on your individual faith and holiness to make your prayers powerful and effective, take heart. He is listening to “our” prayer, as we pray to “our” Father in heaven. None of us has it all together, but together we have all we need. It is a great mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

MYTH #2: Every believer in Jesus by definition is a member of the body of Christ; therefore, every true believer in Jesus must become an active member of a viable local church.

There is no such thing as a believer who is not a part of the church. You cannot honestly claim to follow Jesus and be out of fellowship with people who are his followers, for we are all members of his body. We are told not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. God is not looking for lone rangers to serve him. However . . . .

TRUTH: Every true believer in Jesus already is a part of the church, whether it is a recognizable congregation or not.

Here is a case of right theology, but a wrong application. The theology rightly says that every true believer in Jesus is by definition a member of the body of Christ. But if that is true, then the definition of a church must be all those who are true believers.

I appreciate what these teachers are saying, and I almost agree with them. There are too many people who are looking to barely get into heaven because of their secret so-called “faith” in Jesus. There are also many backslidden Christians who are forsaking the assembly. The first sign of loss of spiritual zeal is when we pull away from fellowship.

But I’m afraid that often a conflict of interests can confuse our good motives, and preachers whose salaries come from the church offerings can develop self-serving definitions of what constitutes church.

Gene Edwards writes, “There are more devout Christians who love the Lord Jesus Christ who do not go to church, than those who do.”[viii]

Remember our working definition of a church here; it is any Christians in relationship with one another. A church is not necessarily an organization, giving tithes to help support a building and the salary of a preacher. When we get to heaven and the saints are exposed, many of us could be surprised to find some of those who will be greatly honored, whom we right now consider to be renegades, because they are not part of what we define as a local church.

Consider the thousands of believing wives whose husbands forbid or at least hinder them from going to church. Do you think that they have no support system with other believers? Or imagine the untold millions of believers in countries where churches are forbidden by the government, including those currently in prison for their faith. Do they not belong to the body of Christ? And there are many millions of Christ followers who are part of unregistered house churches. Some people also fellowship casually across denominational boundaries with believing neighbors nearby. There is only one body of Christ, and we are all members of it. “We are all members of it,” not “we should all become members of it.”

So, for those who have written off the follower of Jesus who sleeps in on Sunday, let us not be so hasty to judge. And, for those reading this book who have neglected fellowship out of laziness or doubt, let me issue a clear call to assemble with fellow believers in Jesus Christ. Maybe even in an organized church. He lives there, too, you know.

life is relational

Some years ago I remember reading an article by Fred Smith. He wrote that his grown son told him that he had not been a good model as a father. Now, in most ways, Fred was an ideal Christian father. But his son said there was one thing his dad had never learned: Life is relational, not productive.

Because I am naturally a task-oriented person, that comment resonated within me. Life does not consist of how much I accomplish in the days I am here, but rather in how I treated the people who matter to me.

I have tried to parent consciously based on that insight. Being a father is about biology and law; being a dad is about relationships and love. I have tried, when I am aware of it, to remember to have a good relationship with my wife and children rather than getting chores done or perfunctorily doing my duty.

In fact, my relationship with God is like that, too. I can't earn salvation. We often say that Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. It's more about abiding in Christ than accomplishing for Him. It's a matter of Who I know, not what I do. I am saved, not because I have worked hard, but because I have abided in Christ.

There is a natural corollary to this insight, of course: Church is relational, too. Unity is job one, commission is job two. Attendance figures on Sundays are misleading because God is more concerned that we be one than that we be a hundred or a thousand.

All of this relational talk doesn't mean that there is no task to do. Jesus said that he was called to do the work of his Father. On the cross he said, "It is finished." The church is under a great commission, and there is a labor prompted by love before every congregation. Likewise, the stuff of life must be done by me and by the family members. We can't just sit around talking to each other all day and consider ourselves to be a well-balanced family.

That's what I'm talking about: balance. Finding it is like a fiddler on the roof. As for me, I guess I have come to an uneasy balance by being inwardly very driven and task-oriented, yet outwardly being amiable and relationship-focused. I am a type-A person with a type-B mask. Am I healthy? Is my facade wise? Is my inner drivenness right? I am not convinced. In fact, I am convinced that largely I am missing it.

Charles Swindoll wrote that the turning point to his ministry came when he realized that people are not an interruption to his ministry; they are his ministry. More of me needs to surrender, that I might have deep and abiding peace while people distract me from my projects and goals.

I longed and searched my whole life to belong to the perfect church. When I finally found one, they wouldn’t let me in, because I would spoil it. We are fallen. We are flawed. We are broken. We are dysfunctional. All of us. Welcome to earth. Pull up a chair and join in the meal, and then join in the dance, because we are all we have.

the kingdom of the valley

Imagine a valley with a broad plain nestled among the hills. The valley is filled with church buildings. Some are small storefronts, some are colonial brick buildings with white columns and tall steeples, some are modern megaplexes resembling shopping malls, and some are grand cathedrals, taking up blocks of space and reaching high into the sky with towers and stained glass windows. People are all around the valley, too. A few are standing outside, but most are gathered into one of the buildings throughout the valley.

In that valley is the Kingdom of God , the Bride for whom Jesus died, the church that He established. The buildings represent the various denominations, groups, or congregations that make up the Kingdom; organized religion, in its various forms.

Some of the people in the valley stay in their own buildings their entire lives, hardly aware of the other buildings around them, perhaps even denying that the Kingdom extends beyond their own building. Others move from building to building, encouraging free movement from one to the other, recognizing that most likely everyone in the valley is part of the Kingdom.

Which building do you think was in Jesus’ mind as He was dying on the cross? My answer is, “None of them. He died for the people. They are where the Kingdom exists.” He came to bring people into right relationship with God, not to start a new religion, Christian or otherwise. The church is about relationships. It always has been. People are the ones who have created the multi-tiered organization, with budgets and buildings and power and programs.

When we pray for the church, do we pray for the kingdom, or just for our congregation? Do we pray for unity within our church, and also between churches? Do we pray against the spirit of competition that does not flinch at stealing sheep, as long as we gain from it? Do we truly discern the body of Christ when we commune?

Let us join Jesus in his prayer that we will be one. There is one kingdom. There is one church. There is one body. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.[ix] Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.  

group discussion questions

  warm up

Who was your best friend as you were growing up? What qualities drew you to be friends with that person? Do you still keep in touch?

 myth response

In what ways have you seen those who serve on committees view their role as representing a faction rather than a group? What did that person’s attitude do to the functioning of the team? How might you bring that person around to see his or her role differently?

Do you know anyone who is a sincere believer in Jesus, but who does not “go to church” (an organized institution)? How do you think that person would react to the myth that he or she is “out of fellowship?”

 John 17:20-26

When Jesus prays at the end of his ministry, he prays first for his disciples (v.1-19). Then he turns his prayer to address the needs of “those who will believe in me through their message.” That would be those who had been reached by the disciples. By extension, that is us today.

·         What is Jesus’ prayer for us? (v.21-23)

·         Had you never seen this passage, what might you have guessed to be Jesus’ last prayer for future generations?

·         According to his prayer, what does Jesus say is the end result of oneness?

·         How do we achieve complete unity?

·         Who gets the glory from our being one?

·         What do you notice about the early believers’ relationships in these passages: Acts 1:14; Acts 4:32; John 13:35; 1 John 3:23?

Share one thing that you can do this week to make Jesus’ prayer for us become reality.