Together in Unity                     by Niall & Geraldine Griffin  

More and more it seems, people in the Body of Christ are recognising the growing need for unity in the Church as a whole.   This desire for unity has been brought about or strengthened in different ways.   For some it might have come through being inspired by a book, an article, a speech or through television.   For me it came through cancer.

Prior to an emergency operation on Easter Sunday, 1999, as I waited in a ward in Daisy Hill hospital in Newry, the Senior Consultant who was performing the operation came to see me.   As we talked he said something that really seared itself into my memory.   He said,  “We’re a team here”.    He also gave me the privilege of praying for the ‘team’ of theatre staff who took part in the operation.   When I finally ‘came to’ after a life and death crisis which lasted several hours during which Gerry and her Roman Catholic prayer partner and intercessor Bernie prayed the 23rd psalm in a personalised way (“NiaII, the Lord is your Shepherd you shall not want even though you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death you shall not fear…”)    I remember saying “Gerry, it’s a whole new life”.    As I lay in the Recovery Room those words of the surgeon came back to me, “We’re a team here”.   I realised that everyone in the hospital from consultant to those who make cups of tea have one goal…. that those who come into hospital sick should go out well.   It was as if I suddenly had a whole new understanding of the power of unity.   As I was being wheeled from the Recovery Room to the High Dependency Ward I found myself saying to the theatre Sister, “Why can’t the Church be like that?”    Why can’t we work together?   Our divisions are a cancer in the Body of Christ.   We need healing.   We need to he made well so that the world may believe in the One whom the Father sent.   Instead we have divisions, denominations, suspicion, sectarianism and sin.  The Body of Christ is suffering from cancer.   If that hospital had the same divisions as does the Church, I would not he here now.  How many people over the years, because of our divisions, have not been made spiritually whole?

Last December Gerry and I took a SOMA team (SOMA stands for Sharing of Ministries Abroad, which is an Anglican based short term Mission Agency which encourages clergy and lay leaders to work in the power of the Holy Spirit) to N.W. Uganda to Nebbi diocese under Bishop Henry Orombi.   He had arranged for us (there were 5 on the team, 3 Church of Ireland and 2 Roman Catholic) to meet his clergy, lay leaders and leaders from other churches in the 4 archdeaconries.   There were representatives from the Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches at each gathering as well as Anglican leaders.

At each meeting our RC team members Mrs Denise Robinson from Glengormley, and Miss Dora South, a member of the community at the Christian Renewal Centre, Rostrevor, shared their experiences of praying, learning and worshipping together with people of other denominations.   We also spoke on the criteria which encourage communities to he transformed……. that is united fervent prayer and persevering leadership.   On each occasion the leaders (up to 40) stood in a circle, hand in hand, and made a covenant before God that they would meet together, pray for one another, work together, support each other and not criticise one another.

This happened at the end of each of the 4 days that we were together and on the last day in particular, we actually ‘saw’ Ps. 133 in action.   As the leaders, the heads of the churches, stood together in unity, so the oil of God’s blessing was flowing down over them and into the whole group so that the Lord’s commanded blessing was touching people and actually healing them of pain and sickness, without anyone laying hands on them, as they stood there.

On our return to N. Ireland just before Christmas we learned more about Ps.133 when we met again  Angela, a woman who had attended the inter-church Alpha course (Glengorrnley) co-ordinated by Denise Robinson and  which involved some 80 people and their leaders including clergy.    We ourselves had spoken at the evening on “Does God heal today?” just before going to Uganda, and that was when we met Angela.   She had been suffering from pain in her neck and back after a car accident.    After the talk (we all sat at different tables because a meal was also provided) there was time for people to pray for one another.   Angela didn’t ask for prayer because she felt that there were too many other big’ things being prayed for at her table.   On her way out she stopped to speak to Gerry, just to say “hello” and how much she was enjoying the Alpha course (in fact she had committed her life to Jesus during the course) and Gerry put her hand on her shoulder and said “God bless you”.   As we said we met her on our return from Uganda and she was overjoyed because from the moment the words “God bless you” had been said to her she had felt no more pain in her neck and back.    It struck us straightaway, that here was Ps. 133 in action again……..   the brothers, the church leaders working in unity in the Alpha course, and in other ways today too, had released the commanded blessing of healing to the whole body of Christ present so that Angela, even as she was leaving and without specific personal prayer, was healed…….. the oil of blessing had reached the hem of the garment.

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