STAY FIT: Strengthening Your Connection To JesusSample

There’s a recurring theme in the New Testament that indicates our early church leaders were relationally divided and had difficulty working together. Multiple examples can be found in the letters to the Corinthians, where the apostle Paul, who wasn’t exactly known for his subtlety, confronts them about divisive attitudes.

Being in ministry was a huge challenge then, and it’s safe to say the tensions those leaders faced are still relevant today. That’s an extremely diplomatic way of saying, “Sometimes we can be a mess, y’all!”

But our relationships with one another can’t be “a mess” if we want to have a strong relationship with Christ. It’s not reasonable to expect to be at peace with Jesus while we are out of sorts with one another. Paul encourages church leaders to be exactly as divided as Christ himself; in other words, not at all (1 Cor. 1:13).

Relational Divisions
When our relationships are weak, we look for ways to work around each other. When we fail to lean on one another for help in solving our problems, we miss the relational benefits of actually doing ministry together. This, of course, perpetuates more division. We build walls instead of bridges.

The unchurched people we are trying to reach pay the price in the end. Let us be united as a church family and do all we can to help those around us. Together, we can claim a sense of community based on real-life experiences that have been earned on the front lines of ministry.

Growing Together
Paul’s metaphor in 1 Corinthians 3 rings true on many levels. Some of us plant and some of us water, but God is in charge of the growing. We can trust God to do his part if we do ours. Through his Spirit, we can draw from a bottomless well of unity and be a model for our church communities to follow.

Best of all, we will be relationally right with one another and with Jesus.

Chris Ames
North Point Ministries