In should be beyond debating that the last prayer Jesus Christ prayed before going to the cross was for US to be ONE.

John 17:20-23:
“Neither pray I for these alone {the Apostles}, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me”

The last, dying wish of the one we call Savior, Messiah, King, Lord, was that we should be ONE. Now, we can’t all be one all the time because some of the Body are in Boston or Paris or Addis Ababa – and we’re here in Liberty, Missouri. If Jesus prayed for us to be one – but we have over 41,000 denominations now in this thing we call Christianity – maybe we ought to try something different. Something other than starting a new denomination every 48 hours. And just in case you say you’re part of a non-denominational church – well … that’s really just a denomination of one if you’re still going to exclude people that don’t believe all the same stuff you believe.

Here’s the thing, do you have ANY idea how hard it would be to get all the Christians in town – even in a small town – to just have a concert in the park and pray together and hug? Some denominations won’t come if we use instruments. Some won’t come if we use drums or electric guitars. Some won’t come if anybody is going to speak in tongues. And even then, what songs do we all know? And don’t assume that we can do it in ENGLISH and reach everybody. In nearly every town in the United States you would have at least some believers that would only understand Spanish or Chinese or Somali.

What would it take to get all the Christians in one town together? Well, maybe it will take a virus or an earthquake or a flood. Maybe it will take all that stuff in the book of Revelation to get us to stop arguing about when the rapture is and just work together and love one another. And maybe if we got everybody together digitally, we could run it through translators and everybody could benefit from the really terrific sermon the Chinese pastor down the street preached last week or the music from the Somali congregation or the beautiful a cappella harmonies from the Church of Christ. And maybe a tool like that could be used to share resources, help each other out, give to common projects in town and much more.

We’re not trying “steal sheep” or get people going to different building on Sunday morning. Frankly, we don’t care what building you’re in on Sunday morning. What we care about is manifesting our ONENESS in front of the “world” so they could see what it might look like if we actually tried to cooperate with the final prayer Jesus Christ prayed for us.

So, at the heart of it, this is a gift from the Church in Liberty, Missouri to the rest of the world … a tool to maybe try something different. And it’s the fulfillment of a commitment made in the “Open Letter of Apology to the World” that Doug Perry wrote way back in 2005. (Read it here.) It’s just an attempt bring a divided family back together again and heal some old wounds. Some folks are so used to the status quo that they don’t even know they’re wounded, but I PROMISE you, you have amazing, loving brothers and sisters all over town that you’ve been torn apart from and with whom you are going to spend eternity.

Maybe if we are going to pray “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” then we could start being one NOW instead of waiting for Him to force it on us THEN.

We’ve got calendars and discussion boards and places for you to ask for help or help others. We’ve got teachings posted and lots more coming. There is space for your part of the Body to post your own stuff and much more. We can’t do this without you. We need YOU to help us build something here, to try something different, to BE the Church without Walls.

Whaddaya say?