Permit us to share a personally meaningful experience.
While serving a particular congregation some years ago, it was my privilege to also teach Basic Theology at a small nearby Bible College. As an independent school, both student body and staff were drawn from various backgrounds and traditions. Within such setting any ongoing sense of community obviously - and necessarily - required a transcendence of partisan sectarianism.
As might be expected, not everyone shared identical understanding in terms of baptism, the Lord's Table, spiritual gifts or the prophetically related. Some came from backgrounds of traditional worship patterns; others were accustomed to more contemporary modes of expression. Ethnic diversity added an additional dimension. Yet seldom have I witnessed a greater spirit of unity and oneness. Indeed, in various ways the experience came to underscore that which the Church is meant to exemplify: a fellowship of believers whose identity and sense of cause finds impetus, not in sectarian focus and agenda, but rather vibrant oneness of relationship, first and foremost with Jesus Christ and, by extension, one another.
This is not to imply that baptism, Communion or spiritual gifts are inconsequential. Nor is it to advocate a liberal ecumenism devoid of defining standard or requisite truth. It is rather to affirm that when believers committed to scriptural values and spiritual integrity (even if every intent of meaning is not fully agreed upon) are unable to accept one another and function in a concurrence of spirit and objective ("unity of faith," Eph. 4:13), something is wrong.
The need is not for some new "spiritual" denomination or rivalry driven organization (so further fracturing the Body) nor, for that matter, is resolution to be found in a self-righteousness isolationism. What is needed are believers committed to Jesus Christ; the interests of his Kingdom; and to one another in a transcendence of spiritual self absorption - those attributes of a "love in the Spirit" whereby the Body of Christ is unified and witness borne to a lost and hurting world (Col. 1:8; John 13:35).
Difficult days lie ahead in which, as believers, we shall much need one another. In the meantime, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (I John 4:11).
Burl Ratzsch
