Some excellent thoughts from our friend Thabiti Anyabwile over at Pure Church on The Blessings of Theological Unity. Here is one particularly thought-provoking where he points to disagreement as a blessing:

Disagreement.  Here’s a hidden benefit.  When a group rejoices in the same theological truths–especially on the main matters–it enables them to retain trust and love for one another while they disagree on other matters.  Groups bound together by sound theology find themselves able to go to “war” with each other over a host of secondary matters and still leave the table knowing they’d rather be in the foxhole with the very men they just “battled” with.  When truth is held by all, disagreement almost never threatens unity but strengthens it.  It’s counter-intuitive, but disagreement where men and women hold the same view of God actually leads to greater love for one another.

How easy it is for this to fall apart and not hold true in practice! We are so quick to judge one another and a disagreement slips into sinful exchanges, harsh words, and deep conflict. May God give us all the grace to disagree in ways that “never threatens unity but strenthens it.”

Read the whole piece.

Over at the Her.meneutics blog, Natasha Robinson offers some good insight as to what the church would need to do in order to see racial reconciliation. While her post is meant to be a type of review of the new film “The Help,” I found in it a very astute understanding of what reconciliation of human relationships (not just the ones broken from racial bigotry) looks like and what we need to do to achieve it.

Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs:

“That’s what I loved about The Help. It sends a powerful message that reconciliation does not happen primarily through speeches, books, diversity initiatives, or training and it should send a clear message to the church that reconciliation cannot happen with programs, goals, “special” services, and activities. Reconciliation is the result of intentionally building intimate relationships, one day at a time, with one person at a time.”

Read the whole thing.

Here’s a video testimony from the leaders at Quail Springs Church talking about the conflict in their church and how God moved to unify the church through the work of some committed peacemakers. For a bit more background on the story, I recommend reading this article from that Fred wrote a while back.

Conflict and Reconciliation in the Church: The Quail Springs Story from Peacemaker Ministries on Vimeo.

The story of a church that faced a deep conflict and pursued reconciliation.

“Christians in community must again show the world, not merely family values, but the bond of the love of Christ. Increasingly the ordered fellowship of the church becomes the sign of grace for the warring factions of a disordered world. Only as the church binds together those whom selfishness and hate have cut apart will its message be heard and its ministry of hope to the friendless be received.”

—Edmund P. Clowney, The Church

A nice post over at the Gospel Coalition blog on unity in the church. I thought this was particularly well said:

[Jesus'] prayer is what glues sinners together, and it is by design that conflicting sinners would dwell together. Why? Because Jesus uses the nagging sins of others to expose our own sins, creating opportunities to forbear, forgive, and fulfill Jesus greatest ecclesial instruction: Love one another (John 13:34-35). In this way, strife in the church that naturally leads to disunity has the possibility of refining the church when the underlying sin is confronted, confessed, and the gospel of grace is applied (Matt 18:21-35).

Read the whole thing.

This was over at Justin Taylor’s blog last week and I thought it’d be good to share here:

• Because of the gospel, Christians have become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). Therefore, in our marriage, our past does not define us, confine us, or determine our future.
• Because of the gospel, we are forgiven (Ephesians 1:7). Therefore we can live free of all guilt and condemnation for every sin, and we can trust that God, in his mercy, will be gracious to us.
• Because of the gospel, we can forgive, just as Christ forgave us (Ephesians 4:32). Nothing done against us compares to our sin against God. Therefore all offenses, hostility, and bitterness between Christians can be completely forgiven and removed.
• Because of the gospel, we are accepted by God (Romans 15:7). Therefore we are not dependent on a spouse for who we are or what we need.
• Because of the gospel, sin’s ruling power over us is broken (Romans 6:6, 14). Therefore we can truly obey all that God calls us to do in our marriage, regardless of any circumstance or situation.
• Because of the gospel, we have access to God through Christ (Hebrews 4:14-16). Therefore we can at any time take any need in our marriage to the One who can do all things.
• Because of the gospel, we have hope (Romans 5:1-4). Therefore we can endure any marital difficulty, hardship, or suffering, with the assurance that God is working all to our greatest good (Romans 8:28).
• Because of the gospel, Christ dwells in us by his Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:13-14). Therefore we are confident that God is always with us and is always at work in our marriage, even when progress is imperceptible (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
• Because of the gospel, we have power to fight and overcome remaining sin, which continues to dwell and war within us (Romans 7:19-21, 24-25; Galatians 5:16-17). This indwelling enemy represents the essence of what is called the doctrine of sin.

These are just a few of the ways the gospel can transform a marriage. Sometimes it’s not easy to live in the reality of these truths. But it is always possible—and not because of our strength or determination, but because of God’s empowering and enabling grace.

Gary and Betsy Ricucci, Love That Lasts: When Marriage Meets Grace (Crossway, 2006), pp. 22-23

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile (a keynote speaker at this year’s Peacemaker Conference) has been re-posting a classic (and excellent!) series of articles on preventing church splits. It’s a five part series:  Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 are all available. 

To give you a sense of where he’s going, here’s how he began the series:

I have a new and growing conviction. It’s occupying a lot of my thoughts these days… good thoughts, I think. I don’t know why it hasn’t always been a conviction, at least not quite in this way. But, nonetheless, I am convinced that one of my fundamental objectives as a pastor is to prevent church splits from happening.

I don’t mean that it’s my responsibility to make sure no one leaves, or to settle every dispute in a way that preserves unity at all costs. No, there’ll be times when a “split” will humanly speaking be inevitable, and I trust that the Lord has good purposes in causing or allowing them to happen.

What I mean is this: I have some basic responsibilities as a pastor. I must teach and preach God’s Word; I must pray; I must be an example; and, I must carry on a visitation ministry. That’s basically what I think a pastor is to do (admittedly a bit oversimplified). But I am increasingly convinced that I am to do those things with a particular perspective. I’m to do those things with an eye toward the developing and continuing unity of the church. Said negatively, I’m to work in such a way as to prevent the splintering of Christ’s local body in my charge.

Pastor Tullian Tchividjian — pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church — has written a powerful op-ed article in his local newspaper. He’s writing about a conflict in his church that has become widely known in his community.  I encourage you to take a few minutes to read the article and to pray for Tullian, for Coral Ridge, and for the countless other churches in the world that are undergoing similar (if less-known) conflict. 

Here’s an excerpt:

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, with its beautiful steeple has stood prominently on Federal Highway since 1974 (though the church was officially organized in 1960). Its pipe organ is known around the world, as were Dr. Kennedy’s sermons, which were broadcast far and wide each week on radio and television. Yet, for all of its wonderful outreach programs and rich history, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church has always been an imperfect church, comprised of imperfect people, and led by imperfect pastors–first Dr. Kennedy and now me. The fact that we have a majestic steeple towering overhead does not immunize us from conflict.

That’s right, churches have conflicts too. Change can be difficult in any context–a new president, a new spouse, a new coach, or a new pastor–and we have experienced some of that difficulty at Coral Ridge. On March 18th, three days after the vote, I wrote both churches and said that in order to make this transition smooth, the Gospel needs to be embraced and applied by all from both churches. All of us need to be willing to lay our lives down for one another because Christ laid his life down for us (1 John 3:16). That’s what the Gospel-centered life is. And that’s the life that God has called us to live. No one from either church is going to get everything they want (that’s self-protection). But everyone from both churches will have everything we need to do God’s work in God’s way (that’s self-sacrifice). We’re all going to have to give. We’re all going to have to stretch and be taken out of our comfort zone.

And another:

You may have read, in this paper or elsewhere, six members of our church recently circulated unsolicited letters and a petition voicing their opposition to my leadership and requesting a congregational meeting to vote on whether to keep me as their pastor….

The saddest thing about all of this is that, because of the visibility of both Coral Ridge and my family, this conflict has taken on a national interest. The reason this grieves me so deeply is because the Bible says God wants the church to be a visual model of the gospel. He wants us, in other words, to live our lives together in such a way that we demonstrate the good news of reconciliation before the watching world.

The late Francis Schaeffer once noted that bitter divisions among Christians give the world the justification they’re looking for to disbelieve the gospel. But when reconciliation, peacemaking, and unity are on display inside the church, that becomes a powerful witness to this fractured world. “Just as I have loved you,” Jesus commanded, “you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

Read the whole thing, and I just thought of another matter for prayer.  As I was reading of the small circle of people who seem to be undermining this church’s unity, I felt compelled to search my own heart for ways that I am undermining the unity of my own local church. When we read Pastor Tchividjian’s words that “the Gospel-centered life” calls us to sacrifice, to be stretched out side of our comfort zone, to lay down our lives in the same way that Christ did for us, let’s pray that the Gospel would so saturate our hearts that we will respond in this way to the uncomfortable circumstances of our own lives.

On Monday, Tullian Tchividjian posted an excerpt on church unity from his upcoming book Unfashionable.  He is specifically looking at the way that gossip, slander and “God-defaming rumors” destroy the unity of the church and our Christian witness:

 God intends his people to be a visual model of the gospel. He wants us to live our lives together in such a way that we demonstrate the good news of reconciliation before the watching world.

When new members join New City Church, they promise “to promote the unity, purity, and peace of the Church.” One of the quickest ways to break this vow is to gossip-to “chatter idly about others.” This seemingly innocent activity can cause a world of hurt. The corrective is found in the Ninth Commandment, as the Heidelberg Catechism explains:

God’s will is that I never give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without a just cause. Rather, in court and everywhere else, I should avoid lying and deceit of every kind; these are devices the devil himself uses, and they would call down on me God’s intense anger. I should love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbor’s good name.

I’m convinced that most divisions in the church would never happen if we kept this one commandment. When we sin against our brother or sister, what we fail to realize is that, in Christ, we are united. A sin (such as slander) against any one of us is a sin against all of us. When we sin against a brother or sister, we sin against ourselves.

Tchividjian goes on to cite some powerful quotes from Chuck Colson and Francis Schaeffer about the need for peacemaking to be a high priority in churches and the powerful impact that can result from living a lifestyle of reconciliation.  Do take the time to read the whole excerpt that Tchividjian has posted.

Thabiti Anyabwile (keynote speaker at the 2008 Peacemaker Conference) responded to a question from a reader of his blog. I would paraphrase the question as, “I am not an elder in my church. One of my elders has been talking to me and others in the church, indicating that some of his views are very, very different from the other elders. But he’s not actually talking to the other elders about these differences. What should I do?”

Sounds like a conflict, doesn’t it? Sounds like an opportunity to respond biblically.

It’s hard sometimes to know how to respond in a situation like this. What advice would you give?

I thought Thabiti’s response was very good: biblical, loving, but firm.