Ecumenism and the Fullness of Christ

Sorry it’s been so long. We moved and for the next few months we’re staying in a rural house with no internet. I’ll have to visit an internet café to post, so thanks for your patience.

As I spend time on the religious blogosphere, I've really come to appreciate the sheer variety of the body of Christ. From Orthodox, to Anglican, to Reformed, to Protestant, to Pentecostal; each tradition brings a new and vital flavor to the church as a whole.

I’ve been thinking a lot about ecumenism and how to bring all the churches together in my local community. I thought about maybe an ecumenical website, with church directories, services, and ministries, as well as a media library, with archived mp3’s of sermons. Has anyone seen an ecumenical website like that?

To have inter-denominational communication, however, requires that we put aside our preconceived ideas about what exactly constitutes “Christianity” and be willing to admit that our tradition might not be right about every little thing. Can I say that to an extent, it’s a pride issue? Can I say that without being ostracized? Is it ok if I say that maybe the Orthodox have a good idea of God’s mystery, just as much as the Pentecostal understand His personal nature? I’ll probably come back to this idea in a later post, because it’s really affecting me. I came across this verse in my ladies Bible study this week, and it seemed to aptly describe what I had been struggling to articulate for a while now:

"... the church, which is the body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." Ephesians 1:23

I love this verse because it reinforces my idea of the Bigness of God. He is so Big and so complex that it takes all these disparate traditions, each with their own specialties, to meet the fullness of God. God cannot be pigeonholed into a finite set of man-made doctrines. Instead, He needs the entire gamut of doctrines and traditions to fully describe Him. Does that blow your mind too?