I don’t know anyone who says they want less diversity in their churches. But when we get more diversity—could be age, ethnicity, class, or something else—it’s often harder to manage than we expect. Suddenly other people think differently. They don’t understand us. They even make us uncomfortable. And we make them uncomfortable, too.

It’s not easy to love the ones who drive you crazy. But that’s just what Jamie Dunlop wants us to do in his new book (Crossway/9Marks). He offers eight truths for pursuing unity in your church. Of course, loving the ones who drive you crazy starts with recognizing how God loved us when we were yet sinners. And he didn’t choose us because we were lovely. Rather he made us so in choosing us before the foundation of the world.

It turns out he chose the other people in our churches, too. Jamie serves as an associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and he joined me on Gospelbound to help us love one another. I asked if his approach to diversity amid unity produces deeper interactions around church.

“I promise you that Jesus Christ is a much better foundation for friendship than your shared love of basketball,” he answered. “It’s fine for Christians to talk about basketball, but it’s not the same as Jesus. And so you may well find that those friendships in your church where you share the least in common somewhat counter-intuitively have the potential to become your deepest friendships precisely because you have nothing else to build on other than the foundation of Christ.”