When I think of how church is “done” today, all I can see is plaid.

The fad is fading (one can hope) but it comes from watching some video coming from some “cutting edge” pastors … excuse me… leaders conference… and 99 percent of the people on the video who were on stage or being interviewed or were doing the interviewing wore plaid in some way.

So, it’s become my “symbol” for how we “do church” today.

It also becomes my touchpoint for how we are basically trying to do “life” today. Whether it’s the Church or the culture, we “preach” diversity… but we want sameness.

We talk a good game about “being the Body” and wanting more “voices,” but we want those “voices” to sound like us.

In the culture (politically) we want everyone having our view. Not only that, we want everyone to have our exact view. From extreme left to extreme right we know the world would be a better place if everyone would just agree with my view.

In the Church, it’s much the same.

From extremely hot button topics like gays, abortion, creation, the translation of the Bible, Calvinism vs. the rest of the world… whatever it is…

All the way to the songs we sing…

Friends… it’s sameness.

We don’t want “unity.” We want sameness.

This morning I am preaching on Genesis 3-11 and bringing it to a close around the story of Babel. The failure at Babel is everyone wanted to stick together. Same language. Same culture. That was “unity.”

But God’s UNITY isn’t about sameness. It’s about leaning on him through the diversity to bring things together IN HIM. The only way we have UNITY is in Christ. 

So, I do NOT have to agree 100 percent with you on your issue to like you or even be FOR you. (You may not like that… and thus may not like me, but that will NOT keep me from loving you.)

We will disagree in some point on everything from the hot topics to the mundane (even though I will simply state once again BASEBALL is the beautiful game and that’s that).

In Christ, we can find our way through the mess and muck and see something more powerful: it is CHRIST, not my personal opinions, that matter.

I may get my opinions wrong. Here’s the thing: you can, too. Deal with it.

True unity cannot be manufactured by our politics or our unspoken dress codes in church. True unity can only be found in Christ. It’s in loving him and acknowledging his presence among us that we can truly find UNITY. It’s a mess on this side of the equation… but in the eyes of God, it’s a beautiful sight.

So, today, I will have the amazing privilege of serving communion to the Body of Christ. I will serve to people who vote Democrat and vote Republican. I will serve to people who disagree on gay marriage and how old the earth is. I will serve to people who seem to have everything “going on” and God is truly blessing with some good things, and to people whose lives are crumbling all around them.

I do so because in Christ I can love. And that is the ONLY way I can truly “get it done.”