Nearly every Christmas, my mother gives me some type of puzzle that I have to put together to get a present. One year it was a maze that contained a pair of tickets to an off-Broadway production at the Civic Center. There was a secret compartment in the back that could only be opened when the pieces were put together. A couple years back it was a pair of metal circles that had to be reconnected. I will be honest, my first inclination when I receive gifts such as these is to smash them with a hammer until I get what I want. But sometimes the presents inside are slightly less sturdy than a pair of "Miss Saigon" tickets. In the end, reason triumphs over impulse and I either suck it up and mess with it until I get my prize or I whine until Lori does it for me.

Why is it that we will sit ardently on the floor all Christmas morning with passionate determination to figure out the secret of how to fit two metal circles together? Does the frustration give us some sort of sick pleasure? Of course not. The only reason reason we put in all the effort is because the prize at the end is much more valuable than the task at hand. To reconnect the circles yields something far better than a couple of metal hoops.

I learned in science class that energy systems are in a constant state of entropy. In other words, it is far more natural for my two metal rings to become disconnected than it is for them to become reconnected. Unfortunately for Christians, the church seems to be the poster child for this second law of thermodynamics. Schisms and breakups have been one of the most constant elements of church history. There's a denomination for every letter of the alphabet and churches within each denomination maintain a vicious cycle of dilemma, discourse, dissension and division, leading to their eventual splits into various other factions named after pleasant road names or picturesque landforms such as "Rose Hill Methodist" or "Sunny Meadows Baptist." In the church's defense, there are many valid reasons that congregations split. And perhaps it is only keeping with the laws of physics that those churches never reconnect again. But what if they did?
What if two congregations could put aside their differences and reunite?
What if they realized that each had something special to offer and together would be a much more perfect body?
What if the gifts of one could compensate for the weaknesses of the other and vice versa?
What kind of a witness would that be to their city?
I think both's goals are the same. One might be a Chapel and one might be a Dome, but Solomon's musings still ring true:

"Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labour."