Christ's Prayer for Unity, and the Power of Four-Squares

A few weekends ago several families went to Seneca Rocks for the Memorial Day weekend. It didn’t take long for several of the kids to mark out a four-square court. Soon some of the greatest four-square games in history were taking place on that court. It was amazing.

Apparently four-square rules have changed since my grade school days. There were all kinds of rules I had never heard of. Also, because there are so many rules, the person who made it to the fourth square got to name his rules. For example, Riley’s rules were buzzstops but no kills. Taylor’s rules (my favorite by the way) were kills but no setups and no buzzstops. Everyone had a different set of rules; it was a little confusing, but great fun.

Soon campers from other sites were taking part in the four-square excellence. It was becoming quite the sporting event. Steve from Morgantown came over to play. He was there with a group of rock climbers that come to the Seneca Rocks every Memorial Day. Steve’s four-square rules drove us crazy (and were too complicated to explain in this space). Every time he got in square four I thought about quitting the game. We were nice to him, at first, but soon we were giving him the business like we would if we had known him for years. We were brutal.

By Sunday Steve had become a four-square evangelist. He recruited John and Mike from his group to come over and play. As the conversations took place during the game we learned they were all members of a Seventh Day Adventist church in Morgantown. At one point Mike brought over a guitar and was playing worship songs. John, Rob and I invited them to come over for our worship time, and we invited Mike to lead our worship. It was great. We knew a lot of the same songs. They taught us a song or two, and we taught them one as well. We had communion together. Rob led the devotional thought. It was a nice time.

I guess we could have spent those days explaining our theological differences. They would have been wrong about some things, we would have been wrong about some others. But we worship the same God and the same risen savior. I’m not sure, but I hope that what Christ was praying for in the garden. I don’t think unity necessarily means conformity. Unity is a joint Church of Christ, Seventh Day Adventist worship, maybe the first one ever.