Unity News

November, 2002

 Our Story

By Blake Coffee

In 1995, I felt a clear and almost overwhelming sense of calling away from my law firm of 10 years, away from a partnership which had been my only significant career goal up to that time, and away from practicing law with some of my very closest friends. It was scary and sad and exciting all at the same time. And it left me with a multitude of questions.

I’m sure you can imagine what the questions were. Most of them had to do with work and finances and family. But the one question that stayed ever before me was, “What is God doing?” Kappie and I prayed, I left the law firm, we prayed, I began my own practice, and we continued to pray and look for what God was doing. After a short time, I was contacted by Dr. Dick Maples of the Baptist General Convention of Texas . He asked if I would be interested in being trained as a church mediator. “Sure” I responded. I thought to myself, “I’ve known churches all my life; I’ve been in hundreds of mediations, how hard could this be?” I was to be surprised.

The first couple of times I mediated in churches, I may well have done more damage than good, and those failures stay ever before me as a not-so-gentle reminder of how impossible the process of reconciliation is without the Lord’s involvement. As I went from one conflicted congregation to the next, the Lord kept me on a very steep learning curve (I still am!). I began to write. Out of that effort came Five Principles of Unity, and from the publication of that material (and with some great help from my friends at the BGCT) came more and more opportunities to teach Biblical unity principles, even as preventive measures in healthy congregations.

Over the years from 1995 to 2001, the ministry that has become Christian Unity Ministries continued to grow in both depth and breadth. I continued to meet wonderful Christian brothers and sisters whose hearts and gifts were as peacemakers. Together, we developed an e-mail prayer team to cover our efforts in prayer. I began to seek the counsel of more and more of those friends in charting the direction of this ministry.

In August, 2001, I began to ask some of those friends to serve on an Advisory Board.  We all gathered for the first time in January, 2002. At that meeting, Christian Unity Ministries, as it currently exists, was officially born. We began with an Advisory Board of 19 men and women from various locations, various evangelical denominations and various walks of life.

Of those 19 Advisory Board members, three formed the actual Board of Directors for the ministry. They graciously decided to “hire” me as the Executive Director. We received our 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization status in April, 2002.  Now, this ministry belongs completely to God and is directed by the prayerful advice and counsel of these Godly peacemakers. What a joy to work with them!

You may be one who has prayed for this ministry. Thank you for those prayers. We have a vision for creating an entire network of peacemakers all being used by God to assist and equip the Body of Christ to experience Biblical unity. Your prayers are a critical part of that vision.

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