Here’s the bottom line, and this is what the church constantly forgets, is that we’re diverse members of one body. Hard as it is for even me to remember, we are all called into different types of work. It’s completely natural and normal and fine for all of us to totally disagree in terms of how to do the work that’s set before us. It’s okay for us to reach different conclusions on how to do the work, what that work looks like, and the way we do it. What it amounts to is me coming in through the window and someone else through the door, but we’re building the same kingdom. We’re all working toward the same ultimate goals of bringing the kingdom to bear, the being made right of all things. That’s really ultimately the work we are all engaged in.
The problem comes when we try to convince one another that the way that we do it is the more correct or more spiritual way of doing it. We’re members of a diverse body. Every word in that sentence is important. So I’m satisfied to be just a cog in the wheel in the kingdom building machine. I’m okay with others doing it in different ways that I don’t necessarily understand. I’m not gifted to do it their way, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to do it their way. But I am not going to frame it that we all have to be doing the same thing, living in the same part of town, engaged in the same things. That’s when we run into problems.Derek Webb
I posted this quote, along with others, back in 2009. It has come to my mind again as I have been in conversation with friends about our church experiences. We are walking the wire, trying to balance acknowledging our experience while making arrogance our enemy. Maybe some of us have found a different expression of kingdom work. Let’s remain humble about that and not consider our work better than the work of others … and also not comparing our work to another and feeling less than either.
God bless diversity, right?!
