“Are we there yet?” My three year old daughter is already following in the footsteps of generations of kids stuck in the back seat on long car trips. It’s an impatient question, and one that can be applied to lots of situations.
Speaking personally, I’ve spent much of my life in a state of impatience. I couldn’t wait to turn 16 so I could undergo my learner driver’s test. I couldn’t wait to turn 17 to get my provisional license. I couldn’t wait to finish school and start university. I couldn’t wait to finish university and start work. When Heather and I were engaged, I couldn’t wait to get married. I’ve not been very good at waiting.
When it comes to Christian life, we’re all on a relationship journey – we’re getting to know more about God, understand Jesus’ impact in our lives, and respond to the leading, prompting and comforting of the Holy Spirit each day. There are times when I can’t wait to know what God’s got in mind for the next day or chapter of my life. There are also times when I’m trying to escape from what I believe He has in mind for me, but that’s another story.
Church denominations are a bit like this too. As discreet parts of the wider church body, each denomination like the Anglicans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Catholics, Churches of Christ etc are all striving to discover and fulfill their destiny as churches. Some are asking “What part will we play in a revival in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit?” And when is the revival coming? Again, another story.
I spent a lot of time growing up as a member of the Uniting Church. And one of the things that bugged me about the Uniting Church was this “are we there yet?” question. The denomination was formed by the combination of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches. It was in the process of “uniting” and by implication felt as though it wasn’t yet “united.”
I’ve just been reading through some of my notes from my first semester at Tabor and there’s a quote I wrote down from college principal Peter Carblis: “We don’t have to achieve unity, we just have to recognise that anything else is not possible.” There’s so much freedom in that statement.
You see, we already are the body of Christ. Jesus, the head of the church, only sees one church (the people, not the buildings). We are unified by our respect and love for each other, inclusive of our differences. Our administrative and theological differences are, to some extent, man-made and largely irrelevant from Christ’s perspective.
So to answer the question, we are already there. We just don’t realise that we’ve already arrived – it’s a question of readjusting our hearts, minds and attitudes to reflect the reality that Christ sees.
