Why You Must Pursue Church Unity

Ice cubes have come a long way. A century ago, they were delivered in one enormous block. During childhood, my family used ice cube trays. Today, it is even simpler. If you fill a beverage cooler before a picnic or ball game, you need not even touch a tray. Simply position your container before a refrigerator with an ice dispenser, push the button, and watch the cubes roll out the door.

As the ice cube has gone, so has the evangelical Protestant movement. At least in Western culture religious identity is no longer defined by the block (the Catholic Church) or the tray (a denomination in which there's a shared ecclesial structure). Instead, evangelicals often operate as individuals who roll out the door with little-to-no commitment to church membership. Here is how pastor Josh Moody of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, describes the change:

We, in conservative Christian circles, have vigorously maintained the message of the gospel but, at least in some areas and among some movements, have begun to lose any profound grasp of the community of Christ. We have rightly said that a relationship with God is a personal matter. In our context, though, it has become but a step, and a step many of us have unthinkingly taken, to acquiesce that a relationship with God is a purely individual matter. This is practical heterodoxy. Jesus said you can identify his disciples by the kind of relationship they have with one another, by the "love" they have for one another.

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