The body of Christ is diverse. Truly diverse.

We are different: We come from different churches, with different practices. We pray differently, we conduct the Holy Sacrament differently, we govern differently, we worship differently. Even churches within the same denomination have differences.

Even though the body of Christ is diverse, Jesus still desires for us to have unity among us.

So said Pastor Jeff Chong, the Chairman of Love Singapore. He was speaking to more than 1,000 pastors and ministry leaders representing more than 200 churches and organisations at the annual LoveSingapore Summit, themed “All In”, held last week (January 13 to 16, 2025) in Kuala Lumpur.

“In fact, unity was the core value that LoveSingapore was birthed in, in 1995, when God spoke to Pastor Lawrence Khong,” noted Ps Jeff, who is also the Senior Pastor of Hope Singapore. 

“On its website, LoveSingapore calls itself ‘a unity movement motivated by love, fuelled by prayer and inspired by a common vision’.

“Since assuming a role in LoveSingapore, God has opened many doors for me to serve alongside pastors and leaders from different denominations – opportunities I never imagined I’d have.”

In 2023, Ps Jeff officially took over the reins of the unity movement from founder of LoveSingapore and its former chairman Ps Lawrence Khong.

The following is an excerpt of his message:

Unity in the body of Christ is a beautiful idea, but it’s not always easy to live out.

The truth is, the more we work together, the more we realise the difficulties of real unity.

I remember Pastor Lawrence Khong telling me: ‘The more you know the church, the harder it is to love the church.’

But despite all the challenges, we must still pray for unity and do our best to work together.

Why? Because this is God’s way. This is God’s vision for His church.

Unity of the Spirit 

Ephesians 4:3 tells us to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit …”

Notice that Paul didn’t say “the spirit of unity,” but “the unity of the Spirit”. This is not just semantic, but there’s actually a crucial difference.

The spirit of unity is a generic, organisational and social unity. It can be mechanical, it can aim towards conformity.

On the other hand, the unity of the Spirit is organic, supernatural and dynamic. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit – not something that man can produce.

It is a deep spiritual unit borne of the Spirit.

Therefore, without the Holy Spirit, we might attain “a spirit of unity,” but we’ll never truly have “the unity of the Spirit”.

What God desires is the “unity of the Spirit”.

The Church is so diverse, even within the same denomination there are differences. Yet, Jesus called us to a “unity of the Spirit”, said Ps Jeff.

Even though we are different, the Holy Spirit makes us one.

The Holy Spirit brings us together to be united for Jesus and his Kingdom.

God’s Church, God’s way

Precisely because we are different, we bring different strengths to the table.

Precisely because we are different, the Bible teaches us to love one another – not to just “like” one another, because we generally like people who are like us.

Precisely because we are different, we can reach different people with the same Gospel. That, my friends, is the beauty of it.

So the Holy Spirit has brought us together to turn Singapore Godward, to win the youth, and to bless the nations. (These are the three strategic priorities for the LoveSingapore movement set out by Ps Jeff at the start of his term in 2023.)

Unity is a romantic ideal, but it is not easy to live in reality.

After I agreed to take up this leadership role of LoveSingapore, I remember Pastor Derek Hong came to me and spoke to me in a soft, sobering, serious voice. He said: “Jeff, unity is hard.”

Pastor Lawrence Khong also said to me: “The more you know the church, the harder it is to love the church.”

But the truth is: As different as we are, we must pray and do our best. As challenging as it is, we must still work together.

Why? Because this is God’s church, God’s way. 

No matter what role you have – whether you’re the pastor or even the founder of a church — you must remember: The church does not belong to you. The church belongs to Christ.

That’s why, even when we face difficulties, we must lay down our own pride, our own preferences, and lead according to God’s grace.

Once I asked Pastor Lawrence Khong: “LoveSingapore is about to transit. Must keep or not?”

He said: “If it is useful, keep. If it is not useful, throw away.” He is such a secure leader. 

And this is the way I lead LoveSingapore: If it is not useful, and if we have to bend backwards and are scared of or don’t dare to do this or that, why waste our time?

This is why we need to lead according to God’s way. The Church belongs to Christ. And Christ is the way of unity.

How do we build this unity?

I want to suggest two ways to build unity for Jesus and His Kingdom.

1. We need unity with community

While it’s been said that there can be no community without unity, conversely it is also true that there can be no unity without community. Unity is formed through times of community. Unity is relational, and relationships take time. Unity takes time.

So I encourage all of us to stay connected and fellowship beyond the Summit. Ongoing relationships have been formed, and they help keep our boats afloat as we go through the grind of life.

Keep connected through regional gatherings – these are small groups where we do life together, love and be loved, know and be known. These meetings are not just for English-speaking pastors, but also the Mandarin speaking pastors as well. We don’t want to be just familiar spirits, but Kingdom friends who encourage one another and spur one another towards love. We need one another.

Some of you may think this way. And I used to think this way: “I don’t need friends. I have a lot of friends already.”

However, I’ve learned that we don’t exist for ourselves; we exist for other people. Moreover, there may come a time when you need these friendships.

When my wife Pastor Claudia and I started the first regional meetings of pastors in the west of Singapore, there were only seven of us. 

The first meeting of pastors from churches in the west, organised by Pastors Jeff and Claudia. Photo courtesy of Pastor Jeff Chong.

We’ve since met up at different churches. What do we do when we meet up? We do more than eat and laugh. We share testimonies of what God has done through us with regards to the three focuses that God has given us. We also learn lessons from and war stories of host pastors. We fellowship, worship, eat and pray.

During COVID, the pastors in the west went online to meet. Photo courtesy of Pastor Jeff Chong.

One thing that unites us is our desire to see the western region turn Godward. We are not here to take up a piece of the real estate in the west region for no reason. God has placed us here to make a difference in the west.

We need to make sure that we are connected to these regional gatherings. (To connect with other pastors in your region, email [email protected].)

We want to invite you to invite other pastors to be involved as well. Not to make it big for big’s sake, but to be connected with one another, and the focuses that God has given us.

2. Speaking truth with love

This may be painful, but this is needful.

In Ephesians 4, the Bible talks about the issue of unity: One body, one spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism, one God.

It is in this context that Paul penned: “Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is Christ …  Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body.” (Ephesians 4:15, 25)

Unity also involves speaking the truth in love, even when it’s uncomfortable.

When you see a male pastor having an intimate conversation with a woman who is not his wife, we must have the courage and wisdom to ask hard questions: “What is happening here?”, “Why do you always oscillate towards her in every gathering?”

When we see another pastor or leader powering up in the way he speaks or leads, we must have the courage, wisdom and love to ask hard questions. Questions like: “Are you okay? You seem angry when you talk about the different pastors and about your church.”

Ask this way (puts hand on other person’s shoulder): “How are you doing? How are you doing – really?”

Don’t be afraid to speak the truth in love, said Ps Jeff, giving examples of what extending beyond one’s comfort level for the benefit of another looks like.

Don’t just talk in the comfortable 90%, go the last 10%.

This goes for both affirmation as well as asking the hard questions.

Let me give you an example about affirmation in the comfortable 90%: “Oh, I see Jesus in you. You are so kind.”

An example of the last 10%? “When I lost my job, you took leave and we went to the gym together. That day, we didn’t say a single word but your presence meant a lot to me.”

The same is also true of asking hard questions.

The comfortable 90%: “Are you more like Jesus? Got read your Bible or not?”

The uncomfortable 10%: “Don’t mind me, I saw on Facebook recently that you have been posting about going to expensive restaurants. Honestly, how are you handling your finances? Are you still glorifying God?”

Many Christians are sometimes too polite, and only travel on the 90%. But the 90% won’t do very much.

Are these conversations difficult? You bet.

When we talk like this, we run the risk of being accused of having a holier than thou attitude.

Worse still, if it’s true that the pastor is really having an affair, we have a mess to clean up.

Are these conversations difficult? Yes. Needful? Yes, yes, a thousand yeses.

There is no point in being a hindsight prophet. What’s the point of saying things like “I already knew he would get into trouble, it was so obvious” after the guy has jumped into wrong bed?

Let me share my commitment to the people around me.

Sometime ago, I was doing online recording with senior pastors from other churches.

One pastor, before going on camera, put on his jacket. After this, a lady from his church went to him and helped him adjust his collar and pull down his jacket.

Maybe it’s just me, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. I think it’s unusual for our culture.

If this lady was his mum or wife, I understand. But she was neither. I noted this happening as we continued with the recording.

A couple of days later, I decided I needed to ask my friend about this matter. I prayed, planned my approach and put it into action.

I called him. The first thing I did was to assure him of my love and care for him from my heart.

Then I shared with him my observation.

Thankfully, there was nothing going on there. My friend agreed with me that it was rather unusual. He was thankful I took the courage to speak the truth in love.

As such, our friendship and trust went up to a much deeper level.

I am not suggesting that we go around playing prophet to one another. If you do that, you’ll get persecuted for being stupid.

What I’m saying is: We need to build deep friendships until we come to a point where we can have not only small talk, but deep conversations with one another. We need to come to a place where we can ask difficult questions, and speak hard truth in love in each other’s lives.

We cannot go deep with everyone, but we must certainly go deep with someone.

To turn Singapore Godward, win the youth and bless the nations, we need God and we need one another.

We need both axes of the cross – the vertical one that points us to God and the horizontal one that points us to one another.