The end run tactic

I'd like to build upon an idea I kicked around previously, and expand on it a bit. If the presence of the true church can be detected when you see believers cooperatively using their spiritual gifts, thus manifesting the body of Christ on earth, it points to an avenue to consider in the journey toward church unity. Like so many things I discuss, my idea here will not get us all the way to our goal, but I think this idea may well give us all a healthy push in the right direction.

It would look something like unity, if a rough and ready kind of unity, if people used their gifts together across the boundary lines of church denomination, communion membership, theological predilection and other such impediments. You see a bit of this already, but most instances of it relate to short term responses to singular events like a disaster relief or the crusade of a famous evangelist coming to town.

What I am thinking of is established, stable ministry cooperatives, interdenominational in composition, that serve day to day needs, things like looking after the poor, the sick, the prisoners, the elderly and so on. I am sure there is something about it that would not please doctrinal purists, but what are they going to do about it? They can hardly tell believers not to minister in their gifts and for the greater good. So while I would expect some official resistance I would expect it to be ineffective and rather silly sounding.

In light of the rules of certain churches, not all participants in a shared ministry would be able to take communion together, which is certainly not ideal, but at the same time it is no bar to doing works of service together. Surely no one can forbid you to serve and pray alongside another believer, and that is where the work gets done.

There are other denominational pitfalls that will need to be skirted. Some Baptists, Brethren and others are cessationists, holding that the gifts, or some gifts, vanished when the Bible was finished. You must ask them to use their talents instead, and not say gifts. Then you will get good service from them. They do not deny that the Lord said we are all to use the talents he gives us.

There is, though, no room for the ultra-charismatic so enthralled with the idea of the gifts that he never pauses for sober consideration of the true, biblical tests of gifted ministry: fidelity to scripture and the practical outcomes of words and deeds. In real world ministry the unthinking spiritual enthusiast is a useless encumbrance, and cannot help it. He never compares his feelings to the facts before him. That is the sort the cessationists were arguing against and simply went too far. They tarred with a too-broad broad brush.

A dear friend and fellow laborer of mine told me of her confusion at encountering a church that rejects all use of musical instruments in worship. She had not encountered that idea before. In this church they only sing a cappella, and only the Psalms. From the look of merry irony in my friend's eyes I could tell what she was thinking and guessed it before she said it. Yes, the Psalms tell of using instrumental music to praise God. This is another example of the kind of quirky denominational thinking all will need to be aware of: not taking it too seriously if you have it, and never being too startled when you meet it in someone else. You may need to forgive other Christians for their guitars, organs or tambourines; if the shoe is on the other foot, you may need to learn to sing a cappella some of the time. In the long centuries of separation we have come up with a lot of eccentric ideas. But all such problems are things that can be smoothed over for the sake of the greater goals before us.

When we have gifted ministries operating across denominational boundaries, manifesting the earthly body of Christ, then saying that there is more than just one church will be no longer tenable as a spiritual statement but will become merely a political one. Alas, church politics has always been our chief problem in the pursuit of unity, especially the questions of who shall be in charge, who shall get the credit and who holds the money bag. Questions of power, prestige and wealth are behind a thousand years of schisms. Elaborate doctrines are composed that cause church rifts and are afterward used to justify them, but the dividing lines still look an awful lot like those three. I would expect the same old questions to arise, but I would also hope for grace enough for all participants to see what those questions really say about us.