I was a green seminarian grad, for those of you who know what that is, you know how dangerous and stupid we can be.  My mind was full of what the Church could be “if only…”, and that’s usually where the trouble begins.  My thoughts were about unity.  At seminary I was taught many things that I left behind without a second thought.  But after being exposed to how crazy everything was, the thought to get us all together under Christ became paramount.

I grew up in a church with a background of ecumenically minded founders from the 1800’s.  Even though it didn’t take long for that movement to split itself three different ways, I wanted to stand in that same original vision restoring what Alexander Campbell and others started so long ago.  I began by calling around 30+ churches throughout Lansing challenging them with John 17:20-26.  I tried to reason with them that this was the kind of evangelism that could win the world.  For the ones who answered their phones, I usually got mumbling words of agreement, but most seemed disinterested.  I began to see how difficult this was going to be.  I talked with God often about it.  Those preachers didn’t know what was out there, they do now even moreso than I would have ever imagined.  Back then I knew of what could come into their churches, to their pulpits.  We needed to get together quick and not just for the lost.  We needed to see that we could be one, I needed to see it.

I kept calling leaving messages on answering machines or having dead end conversations with the church leaders who did answer.  I kept throwing out the net praying that someone would hear.  Someone had to hear what Scripture plainly said, they were preachers after all.  No one.  I began to think I heard God wrong, or maybe this was what He wanted- everything to go crazy.  Then I got a bite, it was a slight nibble, but it was more than I had in weeks.  The inner city churches agreed to meet.  There were about 4-5 of them depending on the schedule.  I was a campus minister at the time, and a friend of mine who also joined was in the prison ministry, so we didn’t really count.  I remember the first meeting, it was glorious.  I was so clueless.  In my mind I had already begun to jump ship to leave contemporary Christianity due to several botched ministries and being tired of the arrogance, elitism, and pride laden in everything from seminary, to church plants, to 100 member churches, to the mega ones.  I was almost headed back out to the woods, that’s where I met Him anyways. And then there were these guys, my answer to prayer and extremely liberal (which I didn’t know at the time), denominational, (I had come from a non-denominational background, they actually called denominations “demon-nations”), but they were willing.  If I remember right, they began calling the group L.C.O.C. which stood for Lansing Council of Churches.

One time, we had a leader who came from a conservative mega church in town.  We had a great phone conversation and I invited him to come.  Things were looking up.  But at the meeting I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so uncomfortable.  He never said a word.  Again, at the time I didn’t know the other leaders were liberals, but he did.  He never came back or returned any calls.  I became friends with his Youth Minister who even told me the guy won’t talk to me.  It didn’t take me long to figure out just how liberal the leaders were.  But this was who God gave me and if this was the worst of it, I figured I could work with it.  Who knows?  Maybe they would be willing to learn from the Bible instead of their headquarters?

We did a couple Thanksgiving events in the few years I was with them and they would invite me to come to perform concerts at their churches; not really what I had envisioned, but it was a start.  I still tried to convince other leaders to join, but in my many conversations with another mega church leader, he explained that these denominational preachers were on rotation and only did these kinds of groups because they were lonely.  He explained that he had enough fellowship amongst his own multi-member ministry team and didn’t need any more.

I grew tired of it all and asked God for someone more charismatic to lead it.  I was left with thoughts like, “People don’t follow Jesus anymore, they need a Bono to get them off their butts.”

A little while after I stopped meeting with them to focus on the campus ministry, I heard of another group that started and it became the group that still meets today with over 100 churches.  I went to their beginning meetings and found all the church leaders there that I had spoken to for so many weeks, even a leader from the conservative mega church, and the other mega church guy who “had enough fellowship with his own team”.

I had attempted to be faithful to what I believed God had shown me.  It turned out crazy, but it seems He used the faithfulness of the liberals to inspire some of the conservatives.  In the end, a portion of what Jesus prayed for came to fruition.

I believe the call is to be faithful even if you get it wrong somehow.  Maybe what you do in faithfulness will inspire others into action who will get it right.  In the end, I got to see what I wanted to see, the Bride of Christ, and she is beautiful.