Holy Spirit, please make us Longsuffering!
Division in the church is always a concern for pastors. Often times we focus on big things, important things like doctrine and practice. True unity can't be achieved without unity of doctrine and practice. These things truly do matter. But often, too often, disunity comes about because of much smaller things. The old standard example is disunity and division over the color of the carpet. The carpet example is an old trope that is used to show how something so mundane can become a point of division in a congregation. How can such a small thing become an issue that brings terrible division? Pride. Ascribing malice to the actions of others. Failure to communicate with others, but "knowing" what they are thinking. Anger. Resentment. These feelings, these actions, can be stirred up by perfectly innocuous events. For instance: Person A on the drive home from church: "Nobody even approached me to have a conversation at church today." Person B als...