When Churches Work Together

So much out in the world seems ugly. I often wonder if that’s because our social media culture reveals more of the darkness or if there really is more darkness out there. Perhaps it’s both. We know the solution—Jesus. Love. Bringing the light into the darkness.

We can all shine our lights from our own communities, and that’s effective because darkness cannot stay where the light is. However, consider how much more darkness we can eradicate if we enlarge our lights by joining together.

I grew up in a great church community in Texas. I will forever be grateful for all the biblical truth poured into me there. While we connected with other churches for our youth rallies and the annual Fine Arts Festivals, though, I don’t recall many times when we served alongside other church bodies to reach the lost in our community. Many of the churches my husband and I were involved in as young adults were similar. They enacted varying degrees of community outreach, but rarely alongside other churches.

There’s a natural tendency toward competition among churches. Maybe we know it’s wrong, but a bent toward comparison and judging why “my church body and the way we do things is better than yours” is often inherent. I’m here to encourage us to resist this tendency. Many relate the individual church bodies to a “little c” church and relate the larger context of all of us who follow Christ as the “big C” Church. We’re missing out on untold blessings, connection, and impact when we don’t connect the church with the Church.

As I write this, our family celebrates six years since God clearly and unequivocally called us to Colorado. We would later learn he wanted us to plant a church, and we are now about three years into the process. When we were in the preparation phase, God connected my husband, James, with a bi-monthly meeting of pastors called the Missional Leaders Roundtable in Denver.

Each pastor has a heart for the community and is active in serving it and loving those in the margins. Through the relationships built at the roundtable, we learned about Soma, a church planting network of which we are now a part. Our sending church is one of the churches James met through the roundtable, and not only are we aligned with them as friends and support for each other, but we’re aligned and have assisted each other in our missional outreach in our relative communities.

Our church plant works with a nonprofit in our area whose mission is to break the cycle of generational poverty. In working with them, we’ve become connected with the leaders of our local county. The county values the faith community and understands our role in improving conditions in our neighborhoods. Accordingly, there’s a group called the Power of Partnership. The partnership brings leaders of the faith community together with civic leaders to discuss how to solve the problems in our neighborhood.

When we attend the Power of Partnership meetings, we share with other leaders from non-denominational churches like ours, leaders from organized denominations, Catholic leaders, LDS leaders, Jewish leaders, and leaders of other religions as well. We could choose not to be a part of this amazing effort between county and faith leaders on the grounds that too many with whom we may disagree are invited to the table.

But is that what Jesus would do? I think not. We need not agree on every or even most tenets of our faith to serve alongside others in our communities.

Because our church plant is still small, our children attend Awana at a nearby church body. They enjoy their time there, and we’ve built relationships with the leaders of the church. When my oldest daughter aged out of attending and asked if she could be a youth assistant, though, she was informed that only members could serve.

While we hold no ill will toward this church, this policy made us sad. I can appreciate the youth leaders needing training or interviews before serving, but the policy unfortunately taught my daughter that her willing service isn’t welcome in this situation. As church leaders, I believe we must break down walls that prevent us from working together toward a common goal. We should evaluate our policies to ensure they support the furthering of our mission as Christ-followers.

Does your church body partner with other churches to serve your neighborhood? If not, do you know why? Are leaders concerned with the potential loss of members to other bodies above the furthering of Christ’s mission? Could you be a catalyst to a new relationship with a nearby church community?

The church network we joined wholeheartedly believes in partnering together. We have churches across the country whom we consider family. They pray for us as we make our needs known. We share resources that are working for children’s ministry. We share best practices for leadership development. In addition to all that, if we had an issue for which we needed assistance, I know we’d have brothers and sisters on planes to come help us. That’s what family is.

Shining the light of Christ in our neighborhoods with our own church family is good; it’s very good. Shining the light of Christ and showing unity despite differences with communities of faith nearby is better, brighter, and makes a bigger impact on the kingdom of God.

Amy Wiebe is a Jesus follower, wife, mom of three, church planter, finance director, and lover of sarcasm and deep conversation with friends. She also loves camping, rafting, skiing, sewing, and having people over. Amy blogs with her husband at fringechurch.com.

Photograph © Louis Moncouyoux, used with permission