Make Us One

In his book No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Max Lucado tells of an encounter with Ian, a young Irish student at a Canadian university. Ian grew up in church; he had planned to go into ministry and had begun studies in theology and biblical languages. But he became disenchanted with religion. Ian wanted very much to believe again, but he just couldn't get a grasp on faith. As they sat down to drink a cup of coffee, Ian asked, “What really matters? What counts? Skip the periphery. Go to the essence. Tell me the part that matters.”

Have you ever had a conversation like that? I have. The chiropractor of one of our members visited one Sunday night twenty years ago. We ended up talking for a while, and he finally asked, “What does your church really believe about things.” I was just ramping up to give him a synopsis of our church organization and worship and teachings when he told me that he was Jewish. He had never been to a Christian church of any kind, and he really didn’t know anything about Jesus. What I was about to say became trivia. he wanted the part that matters!

Sometimes we can get hung up on our eloquence and (in our view) superior wisdom. We find ourselves fuming and fussing about things that we know (even if we won't admit it) are not really central to the Christian faith. The more we stress issues that stray from the center of faith, the more WE stray from the center of that faith. We live in a world that is progressively less and less Christian. All around us are people looking for spiritual reality, but they don't know Jesus at all. And they will listen... if we can find the time to stop feuding with other Christians over the minutia of how to do church.

Ken Young has written a song entitled "Make Us One." This song to me is a powerful reminder of both the ncessity of the world to hear the message of Christ and the need we have to proclaim it with one voice. Only when we allow the Spirit of God to make us one will we ever truly have a message for the world.

In this dark and violent world there is a war that rages on
For the hearts of the believers whom the Lord has called as one
We will take our stand together for the glory of the cross
And the walls that have divided us will crumble
As the sound of praise again is heard with one voice!
Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove; fill our hearts with your heavenly love.
Make us one; make us one--
Like the Father and the Spirit and the Son, make us one