The Unity of the Church -- Jesus is Our Lord!

A friend of mine posed the question and it really made me pause to consider it.  “There is a lot of talk these days about the purity of the church, but what about the peace and unity of the church.  Where are the peacemakers and the brothers and sisters striving for unity?”

Certainly, peace and unity are things that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ values highly, according to the Scriptures, and in any discernment process we need to consider what the Word and our confessions say about these two foundational areas in considering all that God reveals to us in the Word.

The unity Christ prays for in John 17 concerns the Kingdom of God, and the one “holy catholic church,” and is broader than any one denomination. Nevertheless, as Presbyterians, we have committed to our particular Presbyterian expression of the universal church.  Unity and peace here in our part of the whole can also bring glory to God.

In the PC (USA) we are deeply connectional, in response to what is revealed in the Bible: We are called on by God for the service of all people, for the up building of the whole church, and for the glory of God.  Elders, Deacons and Ministers of Word and Sacrament, as ordained officers of the PCUSA, have vowed to be governed by our denomination’s polity, to be subject to its discipline, and to work for the peace, unity, and purity of the church.

Surely much has been written about different viewpoints on the purity of the church and reasons to leave our fellowship, especially in regards to Amendment 10A. But God has moved me, and others, to encourage us to think together on reasons to stay in our Presbytery fellowship of churches and believers.  I hope many of you might see the need to uplift peace and unity as part of our overall discussion and discernment on issues that tend to divide us.

In that light this simple blog is alive for the purpose of highlighting the unity of the church and expressing reasons to stay in our presbytery and the PC(USA).  It is called a The Unity of the Church -- Jesus is Our Lord! and can be reached http://unitypcusa.blogspot.com/

If you or anyone would like to contribute a blog posting on the unity of the church or reasons to stay in the presbytery, please send them to me at glennwilsonusa@hotmail.com  Also, if you come across a good article, bible study or video clip, please send it along to me. 

Perhaps this website might help us as we discern what unity and peace of the church means to us as God moves in our hearts in our time and places, even as we consider the questions of purity, and just what that means to us as sinners saved by Christ’s grace.

Please pray for our presbytery, our committees, our churches, our ruling elders and teaching elders, and the peace, purity and unity of the church.

IN CHRIST.

Glenn Wilson

Moderator, Committee on Ministry