Christians Are In the Business of Division (part 2)
Christians are in the Business of Division (Part 2)
The history of the church in Northeast Minneapolis, where we planted Mill City Church five years ago, has experienced what is true in many communities in our country: Division.
Divided ethnically, denominationally, by age and even political preference.
But as I told you in part one to this post, God was moving!
Churches of multiple denominations and ethnicities were coming together in unexpected ways.
A group of Northeast pastors had now been praying together weekly for two years and a spontaneous brainstorming session emerged as we discussed what a public display of unity might look like.
And a question came up no one could have predicted:
What if – we marched in the Celebrate Northeast Parade… together!?
Of course there was one question running through most of our minds:
If we march together – will we miss the opportunity to get information about OUR specific church out into the community?
My mind jumped to Whitney, who heard about Mill City from our float the previous year. She was such an asset to our community, though she was the only person to join out of the 3000 parade goers.
What if we could get one more Whitney if we had an awesome float?! Nope. There is NO ONE else like Whitney – anyone who knows her will agree.
In the next few minutes a plan had been laid out. There were about 8 churches represented in the room, we would reach out and see who else would march in unity, get matching t-shirts and go public with our unifying force “Mission Northeast”.
Of course with all the time we had spent together – our differences had been apparent.
These different faith communities hold different beliefs, ways of engaging the community, varying ministry strategies, different preferences. But the prayer for unity that Jesus prayed thousands of years ago in John 17 was being answered in this ragamuffin crew.
We could join together, unified by three things:
- Relationship with each other
- Prayer for each other and our community
- Serving Northeast Minneapolis
On a hot summer evening, we marched in the parade 11 churches and hundreds of people all wearing bright green t-shirts. We filled the street and took up the space of about four floats. Each church gave up their right to hand out their own materials and instead handed out cards that said:
Mission Northeast: Uniting Northeast Churches through prayer and service.
We were amazed at what God was doing! But it turns out, he wasn’t quite done.
Stay tuned for what happened next! POST THREE HERE
Christians are in the Business of Division (Part 2)
The history of the church in Northeast Minneapolis, where we planted Mill City Church five years ago, has experienced what is true in many communities in our country: Division.
Divided ethnically, denominationally, by age and even political preference.
But as I told you in part one to this post, God was moving!
Churches of multiple denominations and ethnicities were coming together in unexpected ways.
A group of Northeast pastors had now been praying together weekly for two years and a spontaneous brainstorming session emerged as we discussed what a public display of unity might look like.
And a question came up no one could have predicted:
What if – we marched in the Celebrate Northeast Parade… together!?
Of course there was one question running through most of our minds:
If we march together – will we miss the opportunity to get information about OUR specific church out into the community?
My mind jumped to Whitney, who heard about Mill City from our float the previous year. She was such an asset to our community, though she was the only person to join out of the 3000 parade goers.
What if we could get one more Whitney if we had an awesome float?! Nope. There is NO ONE else like Whitney – anyone who knows her will agree.
In the next few minutes a plan had been laid out. There were about 8 churches represented in the room, we would reach out and see who else would march in unity, get matching t-shirts and go public with our unifying force “Mission Northeast”.
Of course with all the time we had spent together – our differences had been apparent.
These different faith communities hold different beliefs, ways of engaging the community, varying ministry strategies, different preferences. But the prayer for unity that Jesus prayed thousands of years ago in John 17 was being answered in this ragamuffin crew.
We could join together, unified by three things:
- Relationship with each other
- Prayer for each other and our community
- Serving Northeast Minneapolis
On a hot summer evening, we marched in the parade 11 churches and hundreds of people all wearing bright green t-shirts. We filled the street and took up the space of about four floats. Each church gave up their right to hand out their own materials and instead handed out cards that said:
Mission Northeast: Uniting Northeast Churches through prayer and service.
We were amazed at what God was doing! But it turns out, he wasn’t quite done.
Stay tuned for what happened next! POST THREE HERE