from the Leadership Collective email from October 2017
Lately, I have been getting wrecked by unity, or, more accurately, by the Unifier.
I think we are aware that God is in the family business of unity, but there are some of the buzz words that can confuse our understanding about how to go after it. See if you know these: “Sphere of Influence,” “Metron,” “Staying in your lane,” “Finding your Tribe,” “Knowing your Stream.” We have a lot of good, practical reasons for talking about these disciplines, and some of them actually have some amazing fruit. Knowing who you are, whose you are, and what you are called to do is absolutely essential. The pressing revelation that has currently started to accompany that truth for me is, “As long as it eliminates an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality Son.” Gulp.
In a few weeks we will host the worship ministry, Worship Café at GCC for a second time, and a few weeks after that we will take a team to lead worship at the annual Courtside Ministries banquet (for the 3rd time), but for the first time we will be a team comprised of 3 different churches all worshiping the King of kings. These are two examples, but I am telling you that God is encouraging me that All of my Yeses as a leader right now are about unity. Even as we are called to build something here at GCC, build lots of amazing somethings in fact, as we are called to join “Crews” and sit around tables together to go deeper into relationship, it must all be in His love of eliminating our “Us vs. Them” mindset. I’ll be vulnerable with you: the reason I am listening to podcasts like The Naked Bible, The Bible for Normal People, Judah Smith, Rob Bell, Craig Groeshel, Lewis Howes, and Chad Veach, is because God is bigger than any voice, any stream, any strategy, any mindset. And I want more revelation and relationship with His sons and daughters, not less.
There is a misconception that by “being who we are supposed to be, doing what we are supposed to do” that we somehow have to be against what other people are doing. If that scares you into thinking I gone off some universalist cliff or have lost any sense of moral foundation—I would challenge us to start doing relationships really well and believing the best about people. The otherness of another person is a lot less scary up close. And if we are the leaders in this time and place we do get to, and I would argue, we have to, be the ones who lead others into an encounter with the Unifier. Because if there is any doubt that our Father wants everyone in the family, wants all His kids running together and loving one another, then we have missed it. God told me this very day, this will be the drum that I am pounding for the rest of my days.