Unity In Love

This past week, I received my bimonthly copy of Holiness Today, a Church of the Nazarene publication. The theme of this issue is Shedding the Light on Our Assumptions. One article, entitled Catholics and Nazarenes: Friends or Foes?  by Jeremy Scott piqued my interest most of all.

I grew up Catholic and joined the Nazarene church in 2005. My journey from Catholicism to Nazarene started early. Once I became legal driving age and fulfilled my Catholic rites of passage, my parents released me to find my own spiritual path. I attended a non-denominational church for a while before I stopped going to church altogether for a few years.

Then, I met and married a Baptist. I spent many wonderful and formative years in the Baptist church. However, my husband and I both stopped attending church regularly because of work requirements.

My job at the time allowed me the leisure of listening to the radio. During slow Sunday mornings, I often listened to sermons. One preacher caught my ear more than any other. He was a fascinating teacher-preacher based out of Nashville, Tennessee, where I resided at the time. When I finally advanced in rank and got weekends off, I decided to check out his church, Nashville First Church of the Nazarene, even though I had no idea what a Nazarene believed. All I knew was that I wanted to be where Pastor Gary Allen Henecke preached. NFCN became my church home until I moved back to Texas and found a new Nazarene church.

Once I was old enough to leave the Catholic Church, I did so without looking back. I had some issues with the church that I could not resolve, and, because of these unresolved issues, I became embittered toward the Church.

Even so, the Catholic Church still held a special place in my heart. I protected her like a sibling. I was allowed to say mean things, but I would be quick to defend if someone else made unfounded complaints.

The complaint I hate most is that Catholics do not know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. It bothers me when other Christians assume that just because someone is Catholic, they are not real Christians.

As the article in March/April 2016 edition of HT states, “such overgeneralizations are not only untrue, but a hindrance to being Christ’s people together in the world.”

I recently had a conversation with a group of people about our faith and when we came to Christ. One woman confessed that she did not come to Christ until well into her thirties. She added that the reason she came to Christ later in life was because she was raised Catholic. She seemed genuinely bitter about that. It made me sad and eager to share my own story.

I do not remember a time when Jesus was not a major part of my life. He was my best friend as a child. As a matter of fact, my earliest memory is of my dad picking me up, holding me in his arms, and making such a big fuss about the fact that I sang out loud in church that morning. The spirit obviously filled me that day and stirred something in me, making it impossible for this quiet little girl to remain quiet.

I was raised in a Catholic Church. I met Jesus in a Catholic Church. I am forever indebted to them for introducing me to my best friend.

My mom is one of my greatest spiritual heroes. She is extremely devout. Her devotion goes beyond tradition. She knows Christ intimately. She, too, was raised a Catholic. My mother still attends Catholic Church and is very involved in their ACTS program.

As the article, Catholics and Nazarenes: Friends or Foes? points out, “The temptation is to assume that because someone believes differently about one thing, then we have nothing in common . . . It is truly unfortunate that we must distinguish between one group and another because, in the kingdom of heaven, there is and will be no division whatsoever.”

I know I am as guilty as anyone else at times, especially when I allow myself to dwell on the specific moments in my life when the Church’s stance on something differed so greatly from my own ideologies that I accused them unjustly of being no better than the Sadducees or Pharisees of Jesus’ time.

I, too, must remember that Jesus does not call us to uniformity, but to unity in love.

“Jesus shows us that the living faith-full outflow of one’s life is truly that which He is concerned about . . .Christ explicitly told us that people will know that we are following Him by the way they see us love each other,” not by which church we align ourselves.

“This is the goal: loving with the love of Christ. The rest is indeed detail.”

 

holinesstoday.org