Refresh. Regrow. Renew.

Last weekend at church, we had a wonderful guest speaker (via video) by the name of Craig Groeschel. He is the pastor of LifeChurch.tv, an online church and at first I really wasn't all that impressed by him. I figured he was going to be boring and preachy but he turned out to be interesting and funny.

Our pastor talked for a bit and then they started the video about seven minutes into it. For me it was a great place to start because Groeschel was interviewing New Yorkers about whether Christians were a unified group or divided. They all pretty much said that we were divided which is something that I also have seen and something that has always troubled me. It is part of the reason I chose to be agnostic in the first place and why I resisted God's call for so long. Why would anyone want to be a part of something that couldn't stand together and argued so much? But how do you unify something so complex as Christianity? There are so many different theories, belief systems, traditions that I don't think we as Christians can truly unite. I love what the cowboy from the interviews said, "you either believe that Jesus is God and we are subservient to him or you believe that the story of Christ is the story of ourselves-we are the son of God and we live as the son of God." It sums of church division rather well, for me anyway.

Groeschel goes on to discuss church unity basically saying that we as Christians may not believe the same things, sing the same songs or have the same traditions but if we can stop fighting with each other and stand together, we would have a better chance of showing people who we are and what we believe. I absolutely agree with him and love this message, although I have to admit that he got a little melodramatic towards the end for my taste but I loved it none the less. Just click on One Prayer if you would like to see it for yourself, but be sure to give me your opinion on it after you watch it.