NEWS

Living Out Unity at CPC

I had the privilege of expounding on Ephesians 4:1-6 in the last two weeks at all five worship services. Paul states in the earlier chapters of his letter that God’s ultimate purpose is fulfilled through the Church, for the Church and in the Church. That leads him to exhort the Christians to “be worthy of their calling”. Of first importance of that is to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace”.

He states that we already possess unity amongst us, in that we belong to one body; we are driven by the same Spirit; we have the same eternal hope; we serve the one Lord; we have the same faith and baptism; and we worship the one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Unfortunately, this deep and multi-faceted unity is frequently undermined by our self-centeredness.  In reality, we frequently still act very much like the rest of the unbelieving world, accepting people we like or who are beneficial to us, but ignoring others who are different from us, whether in language, culture or age. A church can feel like a family wherein siblings are indifferent to or even have disowned each other. That is hurtful to the Father’s heart.

In CPC, we do have restrictions of time and space, limiting the opportunity for us to interact with each other, particularly with members of other worship services. But our relationship in Christ is not dependent on friendship, much as that is helpful, but on our relationships through Christ. The love we are commanded to have for one another is essentially not a matter of feeling but of the will to obey.

The following are some actions we can take to affirm and build up our unity at CPC and strengthen the bond that the Lord has established between us:

1. Greet each other when we see each other in church with a friendly greeting, or even just a nod and a smile if you don’t know each other or language is a limitation. It is an acknowledgement that we belong to the same spiritual family.

2. Get to know two or three members from the other worship services. This helps us to feel that despite language and cultural differences, we share many more things in common with people from other congregations, e.g. our love for the Lord and His church.

3. Make every effort to participate in combined functions, e.g. church camp, monthly prayer meeting, combined services, church fete, combined choir, special talks & seminars etc.

4. Be willing to serve together with members of other congregations when the opportunity arises, e.g. organising the abovementioned combined functions, serving in Sunday School, Coffee Corner and church lunch etc.

5. Find opportunities to hold joint activities, particularly when synergies can be derived, e.g. joint outreach events.

6. Share our burdens, visions and prayer points through personal and official channels with other congregations and take a genuine interest in theirs.

7. Create opportunities for the young and older members to interact (such as the Cantonese “Seniors Day”) to reduce the perception of a generation gap.

Let us diligently make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

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