'A Voice for the Invisible Church': Covenant Christian Coalition Strives to Unite Churches as Jesus Prayed
A relatively new evangelical organization known as The Covenant Christian Coalition (CCC) is hoping to bring about interdenominational unity.
The group's purpose, according to the organization's website, is what Jesus Christ prayed, as recorded in the Bible's New Testament in .
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
According to Google News, CCC maintains an absolute insistence on orthodox evangelical belief for a church to join the organization. This makes membership by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and even some mainline Protestant denominations unlikely.
The CCC says as long as Christians agree about the deity of Christ, his physical resurrection, and salvation through faith alone, they can disagree on just about everything else and still have fellowship.
Issues not to be considered important enough to break fellowship include what the CCC calls "minor things" like speaking in tongues, immersion or sprinkling for baptism, and worshiping on Saturday versus Sunday.
This fellowship means CCC member churches can belong to many different denominations including Pentecostal, Baptist, and even Messianic Jewish.
The organization wants to be a voice for evangelical Christians worldwide who are not presently represented in other world organizations like the World Council of Churches or the World Evangelical Alliance.
The CCC strongly affirms the "invisible church" belief that the true church is only known to God and just because someone belongs to a certain denomination that doesn't mean that someone is a Christian or automatically saved, according to Google News. (LINK). The organization asserts that salvation only comes through genuine faith in Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection.
Since the organization's founding by Christian leaders in February 2015 in Dallas, Texas, churches around the world have joined.
One of the newest members of the CCC is the Salvation Church of Christ located in Uganda.
"The greatest challenge faced by my ministry is lack of support and inadequate partnership in Africa that cripples and slows the pace of ministry growth and expansion," said Pastor Grace Kigozi.
Kigozi recognized that the CCC would be a great help to her church.
"My main reason for joining the CCC was and still is to connect, get in touch with, and work together with ministers and ministries whose vision and purpose is to spread the word and together fulfill the Great Commission that Christ Jesus instructed us to obey."
For more information about the organization, visit the CCC's website.
