Our own brand name

So many times in this work I have seen people who think that their own tradition is the most important.  They will not work with other denominations or help support one another.  They want to push through their own agenda, their own brand of Christianity, because evidently, that is the most important and only one. 

How do we forget Paul?  How do we seem to block out the verses on being the Body of Christ?  We are not Jesus' only and true brand name of Christianity.

See Paul explains in many of his letters about the gifts we have for ministry or gifts of the Spirit or what that fruit looks like (Colossians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans).  We seem to forget that alone we cannot encompass all of these gifts.  We each have functions in the Body of Christ and we try to be an arm, a foot, a tongue, a body all by ourselves thinking that this is sustainable.  People get strained out and thinned and we don't have enough strength for the journey.  We are not sustainable as a Body this way, broken and trying to make it all on our own steam.  We have so much more we could offer our communities, each other, and to God if we worked together.  Our gifts would be highlighted brought out by one another and we would see the seeds of growth, nurture and love start to spring in our midst. 

What does it take?  Sometimes it takes being in real dire straits to recognize we will no longer make it on our own.  We need the help of each other.  Sometimes it is being humbled and really hearing what our gifts our to a certain community.  We need to pray more for one another, realize that people need all kinds of salvation, which we offer and can highlight about one another.  We need to stop being so protective of what is ours like God doesn't have room for more or needs us to defend what or who God really is. 

We need to recognize our part in the Body and live into it.  When we start living into our part we will be a healthy productive Body.  One that can function in the world and become transformers of the world.  Because people are tired of fighting one another about everything.  Isn't that what we have learned from the world and take into our churches?  Is that what we really want to be?

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