Unity Not Uniformity
In one edition of Charles Schultz’s beloved Peanuts cartoon, the iras-cible Lucy demands that her little brother, Linus, change the television channel, threatening him with her fist to get him to comply. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus.

“These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they’re nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.”

Success in our mission to make Christlike disciples in the nations will require strong unity as a body of believers; yet unity does not mean uniformity.

One Faith, Many Expressions
We are a Christian church. Our faith is placed in a single source for salvation—the Lord Jesus Christ. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, NIV). Yet we may honor our Lord in a variety of ways. We reject the notion that we must be uniform in our expressions of worship or music or liturgy. There is room in the Body of Christ for every peo-ple, every language, and every culture.

One Passion, Many Convictions
We are a holiness church. We are united in our hunger to experience the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to live new, victorious lives. Yet we have varying convictions. We refuse to rebuke one another for that which God has not condemned. And we respect the convictions of those with whom we disagree, making “every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edifica-tion” (Romans 14:19, NIV).

One Mission, Many Contacts
We are a missional church. We are united in our purpose to make Christlike disciples in the nations, and we pool our resources in this pursuit. Yet we live and minister in diverse settings. We under-stand that a variety of methodologies and strate-gies will be needed in order to make Jesus known to every culture, nation, and people. With the Apostle Paul, we have “become all things to all peo-ple so that by all possible means I [we] might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22, NIV).

We are united. We are diverse. We are strong. We are making Christlike disciples in the nations.

~Stan A. Toler
General Superintendent