You may have seen good people begin with a mild disagreement. It starts as a discussion but becomes a contest about who is right. Voices become gradually louder. Faces become a little more flushed. Instead of talking about the issue, people begin talking about themselves and why their view is more likely to be right. Pride gets in the way of unity.

You may even know people who have left the Church over injured pride.

William P. Barker tells a story about an evangelical church in Tennessee that performed the New Testament practice of foot washing.  But then someone wanted to know which foot you should wash first.  The Bible isn’t clear on this, and so an argument arose in the church about it.

The disagreement of which foot to wash first could not be settled, so the congregation divided.  Now there is a church sign which reads: LEFT FOOT BAPTIST CHURCH.

For any organisation, any branch, ward, stake or mission to be healthy and to grow we must avoid contention. As the Saviour Himself made clear when He was laying the foundation for a Zion society in the ancient Americas:

He that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.

Behold, this is not my doctrine . . . ; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away. (3 Nephi 11:29-30)

Unity is such an important principle that the Lord commanded the early Saints, “Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.”

President Henry B Eyring suggests that one way for us to promote unity is to become peacemakers who calm troubled waters before harm is done.

One way to be a peacemaker or a unity maker is to search for anything on which we agree. You can help yourself and others to see common ground if you ask for help from God and then act. He will answer your prayer to help restore peace.

We can also be a peacemaker by practicing and teaching forgiveness. Jesus was asked how many times one should forgive, and he replied that we should forgive without limit. Forgive him “seventy times seven.” (Matt. 18:22.)

In modern revelation, the Lord has said, “Inasmuch as you have forgiven one another your trespasses, even so I, the Lord, forgive you.” (D&C 82:1.)

The Lord counseled, “My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” (D&C 64:8–9).

Is the Lord really saying that refusing to forgive another is a greater sin than the offense committed against us? Yes. Truman Madsen suggests one reason for this: In refusing to forgive another, we, in effect, attempt to deny the blessings of the Atonement to that person.

An important part of forgiving is forgetting. In some ways, being able to forget is almost as valuable as being able to remember.

That leads to another principle of unity. It is to speak well of each other. Think of the last time you were asked what you thought about how someone else was doing in your family or in the Church. For instance, suppose someone asks you what you think of a leader.

You might remember your mother saying “If you can’t say anything good about a person, don’t say anything at all.”

That will help you look for what is best in another person’s performance and character. The Saviour, as our loving judge, will surely do that as He judges your performance and mine.

That same principle applies as we build unity with people who are from vastly different backgrounds. The children of God have more in common than they have differences. God will help us see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution.

True unity does not require us to give up our individuality. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “Unity has never meant uniformity.” While all human beings share a common bond as beloved spirit children of Heavenly Parents, each of us is a unique individual with individual personalities, experiences, and gifts. And each of these individual characteristics can contribute to greater unity.

We need to understand that principle as the Lord gathers more and more people who are not like us. We are what the Apostle Paul saw:

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:18-19)

The apostle Paul explained taught that even though the gifts that people were blessed with were different, each contributed to the whole, just as individual parts of the body contribute to the wellness of the whole body. And each individual part is equally important. Paul said:

For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? . . .

If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? . . .

But now are they many members, yet but one body.

And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.  1 Corinthians 12:14–15, 17, 20–21.

President Howard W. Hunter summarized the point and applied it to the modern-day Church when he stated:

We are truly dependent on each other, “and the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” (1 Cor. 12:21.) Nor can the North Americans say to the Asians, nor the Europeans to the islanders of the sea, “I have no need of thee.” No, in this church we have need of every member, and we pray, as did Paul when he wrote to the church in Corinth, “that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

“And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor. 12:25–26.)

I loved Sister Eubank’s General Conference address when she talked about making your boat swing.:

In 1936, an obscure rowing team from the University of Washington traveled to Germany to participate in the Olympic Games. It was the depths of the Great Depression. These were working-class boys whose small mining and lumber towns donated bits of money so they could travel to Berlin. Every aspect of the competition seemed stacked against them, but something happened in the race. In the rowing world, they call it “swing.” Listen to this description based on the book The Boys in the Boat:

There is a thing that sometimes happens that is hard to achieve and hard to define. It’s called “swing.” It happens only when all are rowing in such perfect unison that not a single action is out of sync.

Rowers must rein in their fierce independence and at the same time hold true to their individual capabilities. Races are not won by clones. Good crews are good blends—someone to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve, someone to fight the fight, someone to make peace. No rower is more valuable than another, all are assets to the boat, but if they are to row well together, each must adjust to the needs and capabilities of the others—the shorter-armed person reaching a little farther, the longer-armed person pulling in just a bit.

Differences can be turned to advantage instead of disadvantage. Only then will it feel as if the boat is moving on its own. Only then does pain entirely give way to exultation. Good “swing” feels like poetry.

Against towering obstacles, this team found perfect swing and won. The Olympic gold was exhilarating, but the unity each rower experienced that day was a holy moment that stayed with them all their lives.

Elder Bruce C. Hafen offered a simple analogy to explain how bringing together those with diverse gifts, personalities, and experiences can produce an enhanced and enriched form of unity:

For me, the ideal metaphor is a musical one: with our many voices, we could all sing in unison, in harmony, or in dissonance. Of these three, I prefer harmony, because it enables a variety of voices to blend into a fuller, richer sound than mere unison.

We need to recognise that perfect unity can be achieved only through God and Jesus Christ. Our efforts to become unified will be fully successful only if we focus first on our relationship with Them. The Guide to the Scriptures defines unity as ‘to become one in thought, desire, and purpose first with our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ, and then with other Saints.‘

The Saints can accomplish any purpose of the Lord when fully united in righteousness.