Attainable Unity

attainable unity
by Amy Richmond

Unity…it sometimes seems impossible.  We’ve all got different likes, ideas, and goals, right?

When I was younger, I thought it was a given that you could get along at church.  You agree on the fundamentals so the rest should be easy to navigate.

I was wrong.

But the problems I faced as a younger church member were pretty minor and mostly things I attributed to being from different generations.  I could brush them off, even while sometimes feeling sorry for those who weren’t more enlightened.

Then I signed up to teach Sunday School.  I was really excited.  I got the youngest class—3 year olds—and I loved that age.  I was sure I could connect to the kids and that we could learn together and have some fun along the way.

In preparation for my first class, I called a friend who was an experienced preschool teacher.  She helped me map out my first lesson plan.  I had a wide variety of activities and things to discuss, all based on that week’s Bible Lesson.   I was all set and the class went well…or so I thought.

The Sunday School superintendent (the person who keeps things running every Sunday) was a coworker.  On Monday she came to my office and asked me how my first class went.  I confidently responded that it went great.  She immediately said, “No, it didn’t.”  Yikes.

She didn’t think the activity level of the class was appropriate.  We’d been acting out Noah’s Ark and sometimes the kids were lying on the floor as I read to them or while we talked.  She felt that I needed to have higher expectations for the kids and their ability to sit quietly and listen.  She gave me specific examples of things she thought I should do.  None of them seemed very inspired to me.

I was put off.  This was a volunteer activity and I felt that even if I had messed up (and I didn’t think I had), there should be some gratitude for my efforts.

I was mad and wanted to quit.  But I was at work and didn’t want to show that I was upset in a professional setting.

So the minute she left my office, I called a friend who was Christian Science practitioner.  He said something that stopped me in my tracks, “Her expression of God can’t hinder your expression of God and yours can’t hinder hers.”  The promise of that statement cleared away the anger.

I thought about it a lot over the next week.  I didn’t know exactly how things would play out, but I felt like I should adjust my Sunday School activities out of respect.  I dropped the activities that the superintendent had felt were problematic.  I didn’t want to bring conflict into Sunday School.  No more play acting, but the classes were still relaxed and fun and I continued to teach in a way that felt like me.

A couple of times, the superintendent joined our class and conducted it in the way she’d outlined to me during that chat in the office.  I saw firsthand that she put her money where her mouth was.  The things she did were not anything I’d ever do, but I appreciated that they were effective and the kids responded in a positive way.  I was seeing firsthand how well she was expressing God.

A few weeks later she came to me and excitedly told me that she’d taken care of the small children during a Wednesday testimony service.  They’d acted out Noah’s Ark and it was a big hit!  That was my green light.  I kind of surprised myself by not feeling like “I told you so.”  In fact, I was really grateful that we were both learning and adjusting because God was moving us, not because we were ceding to someone else’s will.

The biggest lesson for me?  That unity doesn’t necessarily mean sameness.  It can mean harmonious differences.  And that’s a lesson worth learning!

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