lay it down

God has something real important He's trying to say to me through all sorts of encounters recently. The learning has to do with power and control, leadership, reconciliation, partnership, transformation....you know, small stuff like that.

There's a desire for unity that I hear around our community. I hear this from black church leaders in East Waterloo, and I hear this from white church leaders from Waterloo and Cedar Falls. I hear spoken words like, "We want to bridge the divide." "We need to come together." "Forming partnerships would be good."

One of the reasons I don't think much progress happens here is that coming together is often based around some desire to do Kingdom work together. This Kingdom work always seems to have some agenda. And with an agenda, there seems to be unspoken issues regarding power and control.

If I look back at the last four years of my life, I have seen the Spirit of God at work the most when I'm willing to lay down my agenda in order to participate or serve together with someone across "the divide." In doing this, genuine relationship seems to have a better chance to form. Maybe this is the Kingdom work. Maybe the Kingdom work isn't so much working together on some issue or ministry idea as it is simply coming to listen to, know, and validate the other as a person, friend, and brother/sister in Christ. Perhaps only then can God begin to create something new and beautiful as we work together in a true spirit of genuine unity.