Honest questions
Why are there so many denominations?
Because Christians who agree on the centre have disagreed about real questions: baptism, communion, church government, how God's sovereignty and human choice fit together. Language, geography and migration account for many of the rest, and plain sin accounts for some. Some divisions are honest differences held by careful people. Others are historical accidents nobody would choose today.
What nearly all of them agree on
The overlap is larger than the fragmentation suggests. One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus fully God and fully human, crucified and bodily raised. Salvation by grace, received through faith. Scripture as authoritative. A church made of ordinary people, and a future in which God puts the world right. The ancient creeds were written precisely to state this shared core, and the great majority of denominations can say them without crossing their fingers. Most Sunday services in most traditions are recognisably the same thing.
The genuine disagreements
They are not trivial. Should baptism be for infants or only for professing believers, and by immersion or not? Is Christ present in the Lord's Supper in some particular way, or is it a memorial? Should churches be led by bishops, by elders, or by the congregation? How do God's sovereignty and human freedom fit together? Have the miraculous gifts continued? Can women serve as elders or pastors? Serious Christians land differently on every one of these, arguing from Scripture in each case, and Trinity presents the positions rather than a verdict.
The divisions that were not about doctrine
Many splits owe more to politics, language, empire, migration and money than to theology. Churches divided along national lines, then along the lines of the countries their members emigrated to, and the labels outlived the reasons. Some divisions were straightforwardly shameful, including congregations that split over race and defended it with Scripture. It is better to name these plainly than to dress them up as principled disagreement. Christians should be able to admit that part of the map was drawn badly.
Choosing a church without being sectarian
You will have to choose somewhere, and choosing implies having views. That is fine. What is not fine is concluding that the traditions you did not choose are not really Christian. A workable test: can you state another tradition's position in a way its members would accept, and can you name something it does better than yours? Look for a church that teaches Scripture, cares for its people and is honest about its own limits. Be somewhere in person; the New Testament assumes it throughout.
In the text
Where this comes from
Quoted from the World English Bible, which is public domain. Read the surrounding chapter in whatever translation you own.
Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.
that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us.
There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
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