I get so tired sometimes of hearing students whine about 'conflict' and 'division' and (the worst of all) 'competition' between ministries on campus. It drives me crazy listening to them moan and lament the lack of unity. Why? Because its all a crock! They are totally clueless about the nature of unity. The Bible says over and over and over again that we, as followers of Jesus, are to live in unity. The first passage of scripture I make the BSU leadership team memorize each year (Ephesians 4:1-3) focuses on unity. But there is a HUGE difference between what the Bible commmands and what students complain about.
Adrian Rogers does a great job of explaining that UNITY is not unison, uniformity or union. He pictures a choir, not singing in unison, but nevertheless united to create beautiful music. Uniformity... uniformity is a joke. Believers in the church are called to a diversity of activities, goals and plans. We're not all supposed to be doing the exact same thing! And even union is a perversion of our God-given call. We might all belong to one church, ministry, or organization, but that says little about the unity of such a union. Even if every member of every campus ministry carried the same membership card, so what? That would mean precious little at the end of the day. It is not unity.
Unity comes with peace. And even though there are a number of campus ministries pursuing similar and sometimes even overlapping goals, that doesn't mean we are not at peace. It does not mean that we are not UNITED.
Sometimes I just want to tell people to shut up about the so-called divisions and competition. I want to tell them to stop focusing on false perceptions and start dealing with REALITY. And the reality is that there are still a lot of lost souls on campus, more than enough to keep us all busy.
By the way, students-who-whine-about-campus-ministries, how many churches do you suppose are enough? One? Ten? TEN THOUSAND?! How about this--however many churches it takes to reach the world for Jesus Christ! That's enough, and until the world is reached for Christ, we need to stop worrying about "competition" and start worrying about mortal combat, because earth is a spiritual battlefield, and people are going to Hell. Now shut up and go tell someone about Jesus.
