One of the greatest problems in the Body of Christ is that of division. As a pastor and student of God’s Word, I take this very seriously. When God raises up leadership for the church it is for the purpose of unity (See Ephesians 4), but instead, so many local churches suffer from a lack of unity. Notice the issue here is “division” and not “denomination”. While I do wish we could be more unified on a broader scale and maybe have fewer denominations, the truth is, denominations are not all bad. Most of them were started for the purposes of fellowship, common mission, and unity. Some of them may have adopted an “us against them” attitude since their inception but in general, denominations are cooperative in nature.

The problem of division primarily resides within the local church. In fact, it goes all the way down to the interpersonal relationships between one church member and another. Sadly, where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, more often than not there is division, and they are paying no attention to Jesus who is there with them. What do we expect? We are like sheep right? Sheep are brought to a pasture. As they start grazing on the grass they start moving away from one another. They are only interested in the food that’s in front of them and they will literally walk off a cliff if that’s where their food path leads them. The shepherd has to keep an eye out for them to keep them together and not wander off into danger.

Members of a local church are the same (and I mean all members including leaders and including myself). Without guidance and correction, we begin to spread out. We begin to lose our sense of common purpose and unity. We get too absorbed in our own self interests and self preservation (our own tuft of grass if you will). If someone offends us, we offend back rather than seek the reconciliation for which God Himself has made us His Ambassadors. A member wanders too far astray and we keep nurturing ourselves and neglect our fellow members. This puts too much distance between us. Two members can be a part of the same church body and never speak to one another. This ought not be.

There was once this little girl named Mary. Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow. I don’t know if you know this story, but interestingly enough, everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Okay, enough with the poem. I bring it up to say that the more we follow Jesus, the less we have a problem with division. Think of the previous scene with all the sheep grazing and following their own interests until they are spread out all over the hillside. Then imagine a scene where all the lambs want to follow the Shepherd. Sure they will grab some food for themselves here and there (you know, their basic needs), but their primary interest is in being close to the Shepherd until they are baaing and bleeting and surrounding Him. Sheep are side by side, bumper to bumper. There’s a huge circle of sheep with the Shepherd at the middle. This is the solution to division…each of us must follow closer and closer to Jesus until we are velcroed to each other’s wool. Wherever Jesus goes, we should be willing to go. The closer we are to Him, the closer we are to each other.

Some of the problem comes from the general membership, but I say the large majority of the problem comes from the leadership of the churches who are leading the others astray. For too long the leaders have set themselves up as the ones to look to for guidance. The pastor is almost as infallible as pope claims to be. The people can’t read their Bibles at home, they just rely on the pastor to feed them. The pastor gets high on the sense of dependence upon him. The people look to the pastor as THE Shepherd. The pastor supplants the Shepherd with himself as a sheep in Shepherd’s clothing. Instead, the pastor should merely be the sheep bleeting the loudest that we need to get closer to the Shepherd. The pastor should be the one saying, “Hey look, there’s some room right up here…come one! You can do it!” I know that’s an oversimplification of pastoral responsibility, but it’s better than the egotistic, power hungry, “have your best life now, but not until I’ve got mine first” leadership of some of the churches today.

At some point, each member of each local church must ask themselves if they are contributing to the unity or the disunity of the church. We always see someone else as the problem and need to realize that if we aren’t actively being reconciled to God and to people then we are part of the problem. Our love for Christ needs to be so strong that we leave the good tuft of grass for someone else because being closer to Jesus is more important than in what sort of field we may find ourselves.

“Why does the lamb love Mary so?”

The eager children cry;
“Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,”
The teacher did reply.