I like to have fun with my own denomination and the churches affiliated with it. I often joke that where there are two Baptists gathered in His name, there are at least three opinions.
But the lack of unity in many churches is a serious manner. Church splits, congregational infighting, and church divisiveness are more common than we often like to admit. Not too long ago, I heard my co-worker at LifeWay, Eric Geiger, make a presentation on church unity. Actually, he largely dealt with training and equipping the saints to do the work of ministry in his presentation, but he beautifully tied that issue with church unity.
Training Results in Unity
Eric simply demonstrated the obvious truths from Scripture. Unfortunately, I don't always see the obvious, so his presentation was both enlightening and encouraging to me. His thesis was straightforward: If pastors equip or train others to do ministry, there will be unity in the church. How do we know this reality? It's clearly stated in Scripture:
"And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness" (Ephesians 4: 11-13, HCSB).
For the sake of brevity, let's deal only with the role of pastors/teachers. Note these truths from the text:
- Christ (He) personally gave this role. It was important to Him, so it has to be important to us.
- The role of pastors is not so much to do ministry, as it is to train or equip others to do ministry.
- If pastors fulfill this role, the body of Christ is built up.
- As the body of Christ is built up, the believers become unified in the faith.
The passage is clear. As pastors are more involved in training others to do ministry, there will be greater unity in the church.
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Thom Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Prior to LifeWay, he served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism. He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Alabama and earned his Master of Divinity and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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