1. The Importance of Unity

2. Our Stories Shape Us A person’s story shapes: Who they are
Why they do certain actions
Why they think certain ways
The same goes for churches
This is not always bad
We just need to recognize it

3. Our story Our story begins with a man named Alexander Campbell
Originally a member of the
“Anti-Burgher Old Light Presbyterian Church”

4. The fall of a Token

5. Freedom and Unity for all
They began as a freedom movement… such that the unity of all believers came to be corollary to their thinking on Christian liberty.
–The Stone-Campbell Movement by Leroy Garrett

6. Freedom and Unity for all
But, we’ve dropped the ball
We have often placed more burdens through unspoken creeds than those verbally uttered or written by others.
So how do we regain this mindset?

7. Good Ole’ days: No such thing
What, then, are the distinguishing marks of a living church? To answer this question we have to go back to the beginning and take a fresh look at the first Christian church in Jerusalem. At the same time, it is essential that we are realistic. We have a tendency to romanticize the early church. We look at it through tinted spectacles. We speak of it in whispers, as if it had no faults. Then we miss the rivalries, the hypocrisies, the immoralities, and the heresies that troubled the early as they trouble the church today. –John Stott

8. So you want to model the early Church…

9. Welcome to Corinth Ritual Prostitution
Hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure and sensual self-indulgence
Church Dynamics
Where’s the unity?

10. Division and Disunity Paul tackles these two for a reason
The biggest mess of all is our radical disunity, which is a scandal. In biblical terms it’s a scandal, in historical terms it’s a nonsense and in missional terms it’s a disaster.
–NT Wright

11. How god sees disunity
Division is forbidden in the church. (1st Cor. 1:10)
Condemned in the church. (1:11-12; 11:18)
Improper in the church. (12:24-25)
Contrary to the unity of Christ (1:13, 12:13)
Divisions are proof of a sinful spirit (3:3)

12. How god sees disunity
Contrary to the spirit of God’s desire for the church (11:16)
Contrary to the prayer of Christ. (John 17:21-23)
Contrary to the purpose of Christ. (John 10:16)
Those who are divisive are not allowed to teach (Titus 3:10, 11). We are even forbidden to be friends with those who cause division (Romans 16:17).

13. We are at War!
If you are at war, you act differently.

14. denominations

15. Just kidding… Instead, lightbulb jokes
How many _________ does it take to change a lightbulb?

16. Methodists

17. Charismatics

18. Atheists

19. Pentecostals

20. Fundamentalists

21. Amish

22. Baptists

23. Unitarians

24. Unity without uniformity
Unity in essentials, Liberty in nonessentials

25. Where Churches of Christ get it right
in my opinion
We were intended to be inclusive of all believers.
Independent for a reason
While maintaining scriptural integrity.

26. Essentials: Jesus and Love (god and others)
“But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”…on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
–Matthew 16:15-16
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
–Matthew 22:36-40

27. Everything else flows from these two
Do not mix up causes and effects in regards to importance.

28. So what does unity look like?
Not total uniformity.
Find the essentials (and here’s where it’s tricky)

29. Bible ≠ Rulebook
If we view the Bible solely as a rulebook, we will be disappointed.
While there are rules, that is not its singular purpose or overarching genre.
Where is the Book of Worship?
Where is the Book of Church Organization and Rules of Order?

30. Bible = Story
If we view the Bible as a narrative, we can greater understand what we are called to.

31. The Divine Dance
From the Greek “Perichoresis”

32. I am the vine Vine leaves do not weed or prune themselves
The Father is the vine dresser
Remain in me
No branch bears fruit when it is cut off

33. God doesn’t prune like my dad
John 13:8

34. SO what do we do now? Start from within Move outward and upward
Don’t sit still

35. So what do we do now? Don’t defend nonsense. Do defend Christ.
Always remember I Corinthians 13

36. The greatest of these is love.