The thought of church has become stuck in my mind as of late. My thoughts haven’t necessarily lingered towards certain ministries, projects and improvements, what color paint this wall should be, or if a chair should be moved from one spot to another. There has been a desire in me to understand church outside of what I’ve come to know it as. So I started peeling back all that I thought church was, and what it’s typically considered to be. And all that I was left with were you and me…a community of believers. WE make up our church, help build one another up, and do our best to fulfill the great commission. Together we shine our lights and share God’ love into our communities. In so many other ways, it is God’s children banding together and bonding together for His glory.

But then there are the troubling and convicting thoughts too: We can build up our church and each other, but so easily (too easily) tear it down.

When a contractor builds a brand new luxury home I doubt that a part of his plans would deal with destroying it! Or when a skyscraper is erected, does the engineer who designed the building have an urge to demolish it? I’m sure he doesn’t.

When we gather as a body of believers, each of us takes up our own building responsibilities (Ephesians 4:16). It’s our job to help build one another up in the Lord and to support and maintain the work He has started. The Apostle Paul makes it clear in Romans 12, verses 4 through 6, that we all play an integral part in this. If we are not helping to maintain the love and work of the Lord in our church, then we are helping to destroy it. So how do we keep ourselves from destroying it and instead, continue in the building up process?

In Ephesians 4:1-3 Paul says this, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”.

Paul is giving us a call to action, to be unified! When we lack any of these things listed by Paul, we allow ourselves to change from builders of the body of Christ, to destroyers of it. I think that the main focus has to be diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit between believers. Unity is described as, “an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting”. When we take on this thought of preserving the unity of the Spirit in our church, we are unstoppable. If we take this call to be unified in the Spirit, we will then achieve true humility, gentleness, patience, and love for another. But when we divide ourselves and start expecting and wanting things from each other, the slow process of demolition begins; we become human wrecking balls!

So the choice belongs to each one of us. Am I going to be that human wrecking ball, tearing down the unity of my church? Or will I strive to be a “church contractor”, building upon what the Lord came to earth to do. Do we desire to do that together as brothers and sisters in Christ? No doubt that’s what God wants from us. And He has given us the power, strength, wisdom, and love to do it successfully: UNITY in the Spirit in the bond of peace. Let’s be diligent to pray for it and committed to practice it. We, the church, will become an unstoppable force for Jesus!