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Day 35: Unity

What obstacles to unity exist at VPC? Do you have ideas for overcoming these obstacles? Pray for deep unity here.

by David Joynt on May 14, 2016


JOHN 17:23

 

The verbs Jesus uses for achieving unity in our passage are continuous verbs. We become one over time, in an ongoing intentional process. This process includes dispute resolution, as we see in Acts 15. It includes dealing with differences of viewpoint, as Paul and Barnabas did in the early stages of the church’s mission, over strategy and direction. It means identifying things that create inequality, as when Greek widows received treatment inferior to Jewish ones. Oneness is a task as well as a spiritual gift, in church life and personal life.

 

What obstacles to unity exist at VPC?

Do you have ideas for overcoming these obstacles?

Pray for deep unity here.

 

Tags: devotional, encountering, unity

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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