Last Sunday, we had opportunity to attend the community church service that our ministerial association hosted in one of the parks here in town. I was so blessed by the opportunity to worship alongside believers from other denominations and to find out what the Lord is doing in their lives and in their churches. Although my husband and I serve in a denominational setting, we really enjoy being able to participate in interdenominational worship.

There are times when we get together with other church leaders in our own denomination for a "rah-rah-our-denomination-rocks" session known as TLC (Team Leadership Conference). I love being part of these conferences because it is a time when we are affirmed in our ministries by our district leadership and get to see what God is doing all over the nation and around the world through our denomination. As much as I love being with my denominational family, I get the most joy, however, being with my Kingdom family. It is so easy to get caught up in our differences denominationally that we loose sight of the purpose God has for us as believers – that is to help establish His kingdom.

When Christians committed to Biblical orthodoxy (i.e. believe the Bible is the very word of God given to us) gather together in worship, I believe we are helping to fulfill Jesus’ prayer for unity among believers in John 17. In this chapter, Jesus is pleading to the Father for the protection and unity of His disciples and their followers.  In verse 21 he states why: My prayer is not for them (his disciples) alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus wanted believers to demonstrate unity so that the unbelieving world would see that He was the true Son of God. When we worship together in unity, we are sending the message to unbelievers in our community that, despite doctrinal differences that have divided us and have caused us to seek different weekly worship services, we are able to come together once or twice a year to celebrate and recognize this essential truth: That we believe in Jesus, the only Son of God. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11).

I believe there is a purpose for denominations and this is the reason why we have chosen to serve under denominational authority. I even think that denominations help to promote unity in the body of Christ because there is the ability to be able to be united under a common statement of faith that may include doctrinal issues with which others may not agree. In other words, there can be less bickering because denominations allow members to worship in a body whose statement of faith all members can "sign on to." However, there is a tendency to sometimes let our love for our denomination overshadow our love for the Kingdom. This can’t be so! I need to rejoice and be just as excited about what God is doing through the Church in our city as I am in what He is doing in my church. If souls are being saved and true disciples are being made through the other churches in our city, praise God! He is using them and the ministry they provide to hasten His coming.

One of the pastor’s in this town, Paul, a humble and unassuming man whose church has a reputation in town for being the "hands and feet of Jesus", prayed "Lord please help us to be Kingdom-minded believers." To that I gave a hearty Amen!

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity!  Psalm 133:1