It corporately humbles the Church in a city to promote Him over our brand. When churches, ministries or organizations in the Body of Christ choose to link arms and serve our cities together in a way that does not draw attention to our individual brands, it provides a collective opportunity to bring recognition to Jesus. I think we can rightfully expect God’s grace (His favor and power) to be poured out over our cities through the Church when we operate in this level of humility. Why? Because this positions us corporately in a place of humility. Could going against nature by periodically laying down our own brands and serving our cities together actually serve to promote and brand Jesus and lead to growth in the Church? Could this, in essence, be a good church growth plan? The natural desire is wanting to brand our organizations in hopes of experiencing growth or receiving credit for something we do. We fall into the trap of building our own parade – to parade ourselves. However, when we find ourselves more consumed with promoting our name or brand in an effort to build our church or organization rather than consuming ourselves with branding Jesus and allowing Him to build His Church, we easily find ourselves consumed with self-promotion. It is necessary to promote our churches or organizations because it’s a way to help grow God’s Church. I’m using this to make a point to all of us – myself included. We could also say we work to promote and to parade ourselves, churches, ministries, business etc… Please understand I don’t think branding our churches, ministries or businesses is a bad thing – I was a marketing major and personally work hard to brand our organization. We all work tirelessly to promote and extend our brands. In today’s world it feels like we are inundated with brands. This familiar passage of scripture teaches us love does not parade itself. There is one I’d like to draw our attention to and when applied to our lives and the decisions we make as organizations, will help us walk in a spirit of humility and unlock the door to unity. This type of love leads to the perfect bond of unity within the context of any relationship – marriage, friendships, and even among churches and organizations.ġ Corinthians 13 gives a list of love’s attributes. Love is humble and when we chose to wear it, it bonds us together (Colossians 3:14). Unity is only possible when we walk in a spirit of humility. This act of humbling ourselves makes unity possible and allows us to experience God’s grace at work in our lives, doing something amazing – individually and corporately – in us, through us, and among us all, which ultimately brings God glory. It’s a way to corporately position the Church within a city to receive a corporate outpouring of God’s grace. This is why I’m personally passionate about seeing churches in cities serve alongside one another. The Bible says, “God rejects the proud BUT gives His grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). Serving together is a way to “humble ourselves.” This is what is powerful. Together they can have a more significant impact than possible alone. Churches and/or Christ-centered organizations linking arms to serve together for a common cause or goal is a glorious act of humility. Unity can manifest itself in acts of service not just for one another, but with one another. Unity is only possible where humility exists. Unity is different – it simply means conforming to one purpose without sacrificing individuality. In our last article, we shared unity is not uniformity.
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