Introduction
I was in Chicago flying east. I had hoped to see family soon, but stuck at Midway with a very long layover, I made the best of things making a phone call. Talking to someone, I mentioned my email address, which happens to contain the name of the church I attend in it. I finished up the call and began thought of lunch when I noticed a man standing nearby. When I saw him, he said, “Hey Brother, how are you doing?” and he came close so that we could embrace.

“I am well,” I said, “but forgive me as I do not remember you at the moment.”

“You may not know me at all, but I recognized the name of the church you mentioned on your phone call. Forgive me if that seems rude, but I couldn’t help but overhear. My name is Edgar, by the way, I’m actually heading to the big conference, but my flight doesn’t leave for some time.”

“Neither does mine,” I said, “so let’s talk for awhile over lunch. My name is Ian.”

“Lunch would be awesome, Ian,” said Edgar.

Talk of the Conference, Edgar defines Unity
Edgar began by sharing his excitement about the conference. “The conference will be inspiring,” he said, “because of the unity that it will build. Do you know who you’re roommate is?”

“I’m not going to the conference,” I said, “I’m going home to see family.”

“Oh, okay. I bet you’re disappointed to miss the conference, though. It’ll be great to see thousands of disciples singing together again.”

“I’m not disappointed,” I said, “but I hope you and everyone else has a good time. I admit that it would be great to hear over a thousands people singing together. I’ve always enjoyed that. But I assume there will be other conferences I can attend. To be honest, some of the classes don’t sound very interesting, but maybe that’s just me. I’m excited about seeing my family as I haven’t seen them in a couple years.”

“Well, Ian,” he replied, “I guess I understand where you’re coming from. I’m just excited to see the church get back to what is important and come together in unity. We haven’t done well in keeping about our purpose or about being unified over these past few years. It just means a lot that people can look past debateable issues and come together for what’s truly important.”

“What do you think is truly important?” I asked.

“Unity,” said Edgar, “Without unity, the rest doesn’t really matter, except for matters of salvation of course. I mean, we have to be unified on more than just the fundamentals. We need to work together as one man to contend for the Gospel of Jesus.”

“I’m not trying to be cagey, but you’ve said something interesting, especially the part where contending for the Gospel as one man is mentioned,” I said. “What exactly is unity to you?”

“Unity is loving your brother, first and foremost,” Edgar said, “Loving God is the greatest commandment, but the best way to show it is loving your brothers and sisters. Loving your brothers and sisters means working out whatever divides you from them. If I am not loving my roommate, a fellow disciple, I need to get together with him and work things out until we are unified again.”