“Harambe!” —A Swahili word that means “all pull together,” and the official motto of Kenya that speaks of communities working together in unity. I encountered this word during a recent minister’s retreat I attended where a presenter spoke of her experience as a missionary to Kenya and the value of teamwork. Sally shared how harambe was the “Go team!” word whenever they worked on a project. The expectation was that all members of the team had a voice and added something that would make the outcome greater than if each one did something alone. It’s a case of the total is greater than the sum of its parts.
I was struck by fact that the concept of team can be so different from the inner workings of the western church that is often top down and authoritarian. Anybody who has worked in a team knows the frustrations of the give-and-take, and temptations to just do it yourself. If you are one who puts efficiency as a top priority, teams are the epitome of a nuisance. They slow things down and after all, your opinion is what really matters. Right? You’re the leader and your vision alone is what counts. Right? It requires a lot of work to make space and blend other gifts and visions. Right? You feel the irritation of the voice that says, “But, what if . . .” You are disturbed by the one who sees other possibilities. I could go on, but I think the point is made.
Part of the problem is the misunderstanding of unity as it applies to how we work. Unity and uniformity is not the same. I wore a uniform in school that looked like all the other girls in the school, but that did not take away my individuality. Uniformity is all about sameness, whereas unity is about a meeting of minds, giving and receiving deference, and pursuing the possibilities of other viewpoints and coming to agreement—harambe. It takes commitment and effort, but even recent research on corporate success shows it is well worth it.
The fourth chapter of Ephesians is a plea for plurality of leadership where the various gifts work in harmony so that the body of Christ can receive the fullness of equipping, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). That means that all the gifts should not only be welcome, but have space and opportunity to operate in fullness. That would include at least all of the gifts mentioned in Eph. 4:11, 1 Cor. 12:8-10, and Rom. 12:6-8. I also believe that because God creates with such diversity, there are other gifts not mentioned in these three passages—gifts of music, visual arts, performing arts, entrepreneurship, mechanical and architectural structures (the kinds mentioned in 2 Chronicles) and probably more. The gifts are not only resources for consultation; they are intended for full integration—harambe—as the body of Christ grows to maturity.
It sounds good in theory, but what holds the team together when opinions are light years apart? What is the glue that keeps members in the trenches working out their differences until they come to consensus? What is at the heart of harambe that actually makes it work? Yes, it takes work to make unity happen, as indicated in Ephesians 4:3, “being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Effort, commitment, perseverance, and vision are the stuff of diligence and they have their place in the successful workings of a team. More importantly, however, like the mortar that holds bricks on a wall even when the bricks are different sizes and shapes, it takes the glue of love to sustain a church team for the long run. “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Col. 3:14).
Unity is more than a working agreement for the Body of Christ in a local church, although that is a microcosm of the bigger picture. If we can’t get along in a local church, how can we expect to see ourselves as a unified body in a wider sense? Jesus spoke of this in His prayer for the body when he said, “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:23). In a larger context, unity of the faith is visual proof to the world that Jesus is who we claim He is, and that God’s love for His people endures. We may not all look alike (uniformity) but our unity of faith binds us as a local body as well as God’s family universal. Unity is critical as we navigate our little brooks and also in the many streams in the river of Christianity.