Finding Unity in Community

The World Race, a place where you’re thrown into community from day 1. 47 individuals traveling, living, and growing alongside each other day in and day out. If you’re anything like me you’re likely wondering, how could a group that large possibly remain united towards one purpose for an entire year? As great as I’ve felt we’ve all gotten along these first couple of months, the Lord recently gave me a fresh perspective on the topic of unity.

To start, let’s begin by looking at the unity of the Trinity. In John 14, Jesus is explaining to his disciples that he is their way to the Father, he is the way and the truth and the life. He exclaims, “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well” and “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” In the latter passage, what the Greek word for “in” conveys is immense. By Jesus saying he is IN the Father and the Father is IN him, he’s describing an intimate oneness, an inseparable unity within the holy Trinity.

This same intimate oneness or inseparable unity is described just a few chapters later in John 17 when Jesus is praying for his disciples prior to his arrest and crucifixion. He says in verse 11, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” Jesus is asking the Father to make the disciples one just as the Trinity is one.

Want to hear something even better? It doesn’t stop with the disciples! In the same chapter Jesus then turns and prays the same request for ALL believers. In verses 20-23 Jesus prays, “I pray also for those whom will believe in me through their (the disciples’) message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you… that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity.”

The oneness of the Trinity is the pattern or example for the oneness of all believers, all Christians. And an intimate oneness, an inseparable unity with God is the goal of every Christian’s faith. However, this isn’t attained by some epic leap of faith, but rather only through the Holy Scripture. Like the disciples experienced Jesus in the flesh and the evidence of his deity, so too do we also know and hear and see through the Word of God.

So how does this tie into the World Race you’re asking? Though we may be 47 individuals traveling, living, and growing alongside each other, we are one squad. Better yet, we are one church body. As we’re divided into seven different teams, serving in several different locations and with many different ministry hosts, we are all one. I’m confident that no matter the physical distance between us, if we’re all feeding from the same scriptural life source and all seeking unity with God, it will only ever draw us closer together. 

47 individuals. 7 teams. 1 church.