At Cape Town 2010 there has been an emphatic call for Christian communities to recover their identity. These words are from the fifth day of the conference, from Chris Wright, who’s a pretty significant voice for me.

Again and again this week, it seems to us, the message has been heard that our mission demands that the church itself must be an authentic model of what it preaches, that the church must demonstrate a community of reconciled love and unity. …

But all three of these idolatries that we’ve been thinking about operate to destroy that unity. In fact I would suggest that the primary cause of our disunity and our fragmentation is our obsession with these three things.

People who build and defend their own status and power are not going to unite in humility with others. And people who’ve got no integrity in what they do or say can’t be trusted to do the costly work of transparency and accountability and unity. And people who are motivated by selfishness will see other Christian ministries as competition.

And so, you see, humility, integrity, and simplicity are also signposts to unity — the unity that is a precondition of our mission according to Jesus in both his command and his prayer.

Again and again this week, we’ve been hearing, discerning, this double challenge coming through, of the need for radical, obedient discipleship leading to maturity — of growth in depth as well as in numbers — and of the need of radical cross-centred reconciliation leading to unity — to growth in love as well as in faith and hope.

And both of these things were the command of Jesus and his apostles, and both of them are indispensable to our mission.

There is no biblical mission without biblical living.

Categories: Written by Arthur

Tagged as: Cape Town 2010 Chris Wright Christianity Church Jesus Lausanne mission unity

Arthur Davis

Arthur Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.