Christian Unity Ministries

<5 Principles Story>

The Story Behind

Five Principles of Unity

by Blake Coffee

When I started working with conflicted congregations in 1995, I immediately found myself working with interpersonal relationships among believers. For me, this was a perfect example of God giving someone an assignment for which that someone felt absolutely inadequate and ill-equipped. I found out quickly that all my knowledge about secular mediation and negotiation was of little help to me in this arena except as a model for how the world attempts to address the surface issues involved in conflict. Early in this new assignment I understood that, below the surface issues, there were emotional issues--and below the emotional issues there were Spiritual issues which required Spiritual solutions.

I went to the only place I know to go for Spiritual solutions--I went to God's Word. I began to pray for a specific and practical understanding of what Biblical unity looks like in a Body of believers.

For the congregations and church leaders with whom I worked, I felt an urgent need to develop a simple Bible Study that would help them develop a common vision for Biblical unity and a common framework within which to examine their relationships with each other. Already a firm believer in the power of the small group, I outlined a simple, small group experience to take place over a relatively short time span (6 weeks). I simply wrote down the Bible lessons I was learning and teaching as I went from congregation to congregation as a mediator.

As always, God's timing was perfect. This "writing assignment" from God came to me in the midst of personal depression. I compiled these lessons during the darkest season of my life, which kept me on my knees every moment of every day. I finished the Bible Study late in 1996 and started printing copies off my own computer for use in the churches with whom I worked. God took the project from there.

I began to receive calls and e-mails from churches and individuals I did not know, who had been given copies of the material and who wanted more copies. I received contacts from churches in various parts of the country and even in other countries. At that same time, my friends at the Baptist General Convention of Texas asked if they could help me publish the material. That was a huge help in beginning to meet the market that God was creating for this book.

Still self-published, and with prayer as our only "marketing plan", we have now published this little Bible Study in four different languages, have sold over 15,000 copies around the world and have given away thousands of other copies. God continues to open more and more countries to the distribution of Five Principles of Unity. This Bible Study material remains at the very core of all that our ministry stands for and it forms a Biblical foundation for all that we teach.

As it turns out, God knows something about marketing and distribution.

If you need a copy of this Bible Study, we want you to have it. If you cannot afford it, just e-mail us through this website and let us know. We will send it to you for no charge. By the same token, if you can afford to help us keep this material in print and keep putting it into the hands of people who need it, please consider supporting this work with your prayers and your contributions.

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