“When I pray, ‘Lord, bring me into your oneness and align my will to yours,’ I find that this moves me toward others, even those that I disagree with, and it leads me to draw closer into relationship with Jesus.”
As Christians, what should our posture be towards those that we disagree with? Scott Brill is our guest blogger this week, providing some insights into navigating the tension between agreement and friendship that doesn’t end in stalemate. Scott is the director of The Initiative, where individuals “covenant together to live in an intentional initiative, practicing deep and growing friendship with God and others, that the love of Jesus might exceed all divisions.” Read below and watch the video to hear his insights on how the practice of cultivating friendship through disagreement embodies the way of the Trinity.
P.S. The Initiative is hosting a local retreat in Worcester on September 15 & 16. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can live out this unity as Christians, join us!
Even though it might seem mutually exclusive, I have grown to be an ecumenist because I am an evangelist. I’ve worked for the past 40 years on InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff in New England, with a desire to see college students have a life-transforming encounter with the love of Jesus (and I still work ¼-time for IVCF).
I’ve had various roles with InterVarsity throughout the region, but for the past twelve years, I’ve been working with Catholic campuses and Catholic students and staff. Ministering as an evangelical Protestant in Catholic spaces has brought into focus the unavoidable reality that the disunity and division of followers of Jesus significantly hinders our witness to Jesus.
I’ve learned that our divides (and divisiveness) are not so much a failure to agree with one another, but a lack of love for one another that should be expressed in a humble willingness to receive folk who we disagree with.
Those experiences have led me to The Initiative, which I have had the privilege of serving as its Director for the past two years. The name of our community is simply the beginning of our ‘rule of life’ which is “to take an intentional initiative to walk in friendship with Jesus and his followers so that the love of Christ might exceed all divisions.”
This rule has three practices:
1. Praying daily for a radical increase of love in the whole Body of Christ
2. Sharing our lives with Christians from traditions other than our own
3. Working proactively for greater missional unity in the Church
One of the ways that we live this out is to gather together in various parts of the U.S. for actual encounters across difference in order to pray, share our stories, and encourage each other to live out “love greater than division” in our contexts. We’re having one of those gatherings of encounter at Assumption University in Worcester September 15th and 16th. We’d love to have members of the UniteBoston community join us for this experience of prayer, lectio divina, worship, small groups, exploring our way of life, and building friendships across difference.
If this sounds intriguing to you, you can find some more details and registration information on the Join Us page of our website. I look forward to seeing you around the city as together we pray and work towards a radical increase of love in the whole Body of Christ!
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