Article 16: Church Order and Unity - the life of the vine and the work of the trellis

Article 16: Church Order and Unity highlights our belief that faith is not just an individual thing but also a corporate reality. We are meant to be in community with one another. As our article names, the body (church) is to be built up in love and our love for one another is part of our witness of God's love to the world. This community dynamic is true of individuals within a local congregation as well as local congregations within a conference and/or denomination.

John 15:1-16 picks up on the theme of love. Here we read of the familiar imagery of Jesus as the vine, God as the gardener and us as the branches. This imagery reminds us of our need to remain connected to the source of our life Jesus Christ. It also emphasizes the importance of bearing fruit, the need for pruning and the consequences of not bearing fruit. It ends with an admonition that we are to remain in Christ's love as Christ remained in God's love and that we are to love each other.

Inherent in this metaphor is the reality of community because Jesus does not say that you are the branch (singular), but rather the branches (plural). And the reality is that a vine does not have one branch but rather many branches that are united together in the vine. Though our article does not reference this passage as a supporting text, it seems to me that the underlying themes of this metaphor connect well. It also seems that this metaphor may have further implications beyond the individual believer and the local congregation. We are a part of a conference which in turn is a part of a denomination which in turn is part of a global network of churches (for more about these connections).

This passage is the text that Ohio Mennonite Conference, our conference of churches, has chosen as its theme for their annual assembly March 11-12, 2011 at Central Christian School. In their view, as each of us are branches in the vine of Jesus that makes up our congregation, the conference looks at each congregation as branches in the vine of Jesus that makes up our conference.

Given this view and the content of our article which points to our wider connections, an extension of this passage is to name the fact that vines that are grown by a gardener to produce fruit, typically have a trellis to support them and assist them in their growth and production. When the trellis is doing its job, it is providing support and networking while being mostly hidden from plain view by the leaves and fruit of the branches. In a similar way, Ohio Conference serves as a trellis to the branch of our congregation. It assists us in carrying out our ministry in the local context and being united together.