Most Christians already know someone who worships at another church. Far fewer have ever done anything with that person beyond friendly conversation. This guide offers one week of small steps for closing that gap: start with a relationship you already have, share a meal, listen for what each congregation is already doing, and end the week with one shared commitment that has a date on it. You can work through it alone, or with a group that meets before and after the week.
The material comes from a Jude 3 Project podcast conversation between Lisa Fields and Dr. Nicole Massie Martin, a senior mobilizer with American Bible Society who works with churches across Charlotte. Martin’s starting point is freeing. She says that “God has already set in a pastor’s life, some built-in collaborations.” This week is about finding one of those and using it.
Before the week: an honest inventory
Martin locates the gap in one missing step. “Generally, there are already people in churches within their midst that they can collaborate with, and for whatever reason, they just haven’t taken that next step of collaboration.”
She names where to look: “You already have a pastor across the street. You already have a friend from seminary. You already have a person within your network.” She was speaking to pastors. If you are not one, translate her categories: a coworker who serves at another church, a former classmate who leads a ministry, a relative in a different denomination.
Take ten minutes with a sheet of paper. Write down every believer you know who belongs to a congregation other than yours. Beside each name, mark whether you have ever done anything with that person beyond conversation. Most people find a long list of names and a short list of shared work. That difference is the distance this week is meant to cover.
One optional question for private reflection: was there a name you hesitated to write down? The reason might be a theological difference, an old tension, or a sense that their church is competition. You need not tell anyone, but it may reveal assumptions you bring to this practice.
Three passages to read before you act
Read these slowly, one per sitting if you can. Each shapes a specific part of the week.
John 17:20-21: you are not starting from zero
On the night before his death, Jesus widens his prayer beyond the disciples in the room to those who would believe through their word. Then he asks the Father: “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” (John 17:21).
Underline the two clauses that begin with “that.” The first names the request. The second names its purpose, and the purpose faces outward, toward the world. Martin draws on this chapter when she says churches work together “so that we can be a witness so that God can be glorified.” Notice one more thing. The person on your list was included in this prayer before you ever met them. You are acting on a connection that already exists.
Philippians 1:3-5: what partners do first
Paul writes to a congregation he worked with for years: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:3-5). Where the KJV has fellowship, many modern translations render it “partnership.” The word describes shared participation in a common work, and later in the letter Paul recalls how this church shared in supporting his ministry when others did not (Philippians 4:15-16).
Look at the order. Before Paul asks the Philippians for anything, he remembers them, thanks God for them and prays for them. That order sets the second day of your week.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10: partnerships stumble
“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). This is wisdom literature. It states how life usually works, and it promises no particular partnership will succeed. Its realism helps: it assumes someone will fall. Martin is equally frank: “you might collaborate on one area and fail in another. But how often will we get back up and try the collaboration again?”
What turns an acquaintance into a partnership
Partnership begins when two congregations take on the same task. Martin’s examples from Charlotte all share that feature. Fifteen churches read the same Bible passages on the same days, so that a woman who missed her own church’s study could join another nearby and pick up where she left off. In one neighborhood, a Presbyterian, a Baptist and a United Methodist church decided together, in Martin’s words, “let’s not try and figure it out on our own. Let’s put our resources together to make this happen to benefit the community.” They built a community center for seniors.
Martin also insists these partnerships began simply. “And these partnerships are not forced. They’re natural, and they happen because the pastor says, Hey, why don’t we go out to lunch sometime?” The lunch is where the shared task gets discovered.
In Martin’s experience, partnership also runs in both directions. Describing what a Korean American church would bring to a partnership, she says, “I know they’re bringing a passion for prayer to the table.” About her own life she adds, “from my Episcopal friends, I’m learning to embrace God’s grace.” Lisa Fields makes a similar point about relationships across denominations: “we sharpen each other when we have those courageous conversations with each other.” Go to lunch expecting to learn as well as to help.
A test before the meal: what you hold and what you can hold open
Martin admits differences come to the table with people. In the projects she convenes, she says, “there are some things people have to check at the door.” She describes some of what people carry, including guilt for some and for others “some anger that doesn’t need to be dismissed.” Her question is whether a person can “be willing to suspend that for a moment for the sake of what’s good?” She also grants that some convictions are strong enough that they need to be raised and discussed.
Before you meet, draw a line down a page. On one side, write what you could not set aside to work with someone. On the other, write differences you could hold open for the sake of one shared task.
Then compare your first column with the essentials Jude 3 names: the authority of Scripture, the deity and humanity of Jesus, the Trinity, the bodily resurrection, salvation by grace through faith and the gospel itself. On these, Jude 3 teaches, the church speaks with one voice, while faithful Christians have always disagreed on secondary matters. Notice what the items have in common. Each concerns who God is, who Jesus is, or how anyone is saved. Two churches divided on those would disagree about the very message their shared work is meant to make believable.
Christians do not all draw the line in the same place, and the test is more honest if you admit that. Some traditions treat questions such as the meaning of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or who may preach, as reasons not to share worship or teaching, even while they gladly serve alongside other churches in the neighborhood. Others hold a shorter list than yours. Try sorting your columns as a member of a stricter tradition would, then as someone more open would. Where do you land, and can you explain why from Scripture? Notice too that worship together and service together may call for different lines.
Fields says she holds some things as essentials while believing that many non-essential issues should not divide believers. Finding where that line falls for you, before lunch, keeps a disagreement from surprising you there.
The week
Day one. Return to your inventory and choose one name: someone you trust, whose church is close enough to share a real task, and whom you would be glad to learn from. If two names fit, pick the one you have put off longest.
Day two. Follow Paul’s order. Pray for this person and their congregation by name. Then learn one thing their church already does in its neighborhood. Write it down.
Day three. Send the invitation. Keep it short and honest. Something like: I’ve been thinking about how our churches might do something together, even something small. Could we get lunch soon? I’d like to hear what your church is working on. If you are not a pastor or ministry leader, tell yours what you are doing. A partnership between congregations needs more than two friends.
Day four, or whenever you meet. Spend most of the meal listening. These questions can help:
- What is your congregation already doing in the community that you care about most?
- What need near your church do you wish you had more help with?
- What does your tradition practice well that mine might learn from?
- Is there one thing we could do together in the next two months?
Day five. Name one shared action small enough to finish. Your two churches could read the same passage on the same days, serve together in work one of you already does, or pray for each other’s congregation by name during a gathering. A first project that actually happens teaches more than a grand plan that never starts.
Day six. Put the action on a calendar. Decide who does what. Send a short note confirming it, so neither of you has to remember the conversation alone.
Day seven. Look back. What surprised you about the other congregation? What did your counterpart seem to need from you? Then look again at your two columns. Would you move anything now?
If the meal lands after the seventh day, the week has still done its work once the invitation is out and one shared step is proposed.
When it stalls
Your invitation may go unanswered, or the lunch may end warmly with no shared task in sight. Go back to your list and choose a second name. Martin’s question about getting back up applies here as much as it does to citywide efforts. If the conversation reveals a disagreement on something you placed in your first column, treat that as a real boundary. You can still pray for that person and their church and remain friends; shared work may simply wait, or take a different form.
For groups
Meet once before the week to work through the inventory, the passages and the two columns, and once after to compare what happened. Do not ask anyone to name the person they chose; some will want to, others will prefer privacy. Expect uneven results. One person may have a date on the calendar while another is still waiting for a reply. Both have taken the step the week asks for.
Questions for the second meeting:
- Before this week, what did you assume a partnership between churches required? Did that assumption change?
- Paul thanked God and prayed for the Philippians before asking anything of them. What difference, if any, did praying first make in how you approached your conversation?
- What did the other congregation turn out to be doing that you did not know about?
- Which difference was hardest to place in a column, and how did people in the group sort it differently?
- Martin speaks of partners bringing something to the table. What might your congregation have to learn from theirs?
- Jesus prayed for unity “that the world may believe” (John 17:21). What would a neighbor near either church actually notice if your shared action happened?
- What would make you try again if this first attempt fails?
After the week
Martin admits that the examples she gives can seem small, and then she explains why they matter anyway: “it’s reshaping a narrative that the church is not in isolation.” One lunch and one shared task will not change how a city sees the church. They change something nearer. Two congregations that used to know of each other now have a reason to call each other. Keep your inventory where you can find it, and in a month look at the second name.