Jan 18 - 25 is designated as a week of prayer for Christian Unity. My prayer for unity has changed over the years. I used to pray that all the true Christian denominations would strike up some merge type deal. I visited with Priests and Pastors, emailed denominational presidents, visited with a leader of an ecumenical organization, and tried to encourage dialog between different Christian traditions. I can't say I made much progress.
I still think such dialog would be helpful. But my prayer for Christian unity has changed.
I no longer view Christ's church as some groupings of a bunch of church organizations.
I view church as Christ's people, and whenever they get together.
I also recognize I've spent too much time focusing on church. We only have two records of Jesus talking about church, but we have over a 100 verses with Him talking about His Kingdom.
It is easy to wrongly assume there are lots of different churches - and see the need for them to unite. The reality is that Christ only has one church - it is everyone who submits to Him as Lord.
But when we think of the kingdom of God, we usually visualize one kingdom. One King, one Lord, one kingdom.
I don't pray that the kingdom unites. It's a no brainer. God's kingdom is united!
Now I simply pray that those who follow Jesus would recognize that we are united. It is not up to the leaders of the different church organizations to decide if we are One. And it's not up to us to decide who is in and who is out.
Here is another recent Prayer For Christian Unity.
How do you pray for Christian unity?
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