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Reading through the opening chapters of the Book of Acts reveal some key marks of the early Church. These are helpful to recognize to see what ought to be the marks of the Church today:
May we pray that the Church of today will reflect our glorious beginnings!
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In this wider series we’ve been exploring the nature of the Church and membership in it. This post seeks to answer the following question: if church membership visibly expresses my invisible membership in the universal church, should my membership be of a geographically local church?
*Note: I am writing this post in response to someone who lives in a community without an evangelical church about my views on being a part of a local church. This post comes from my heart. It in no way seeks to drive away our own members who travel nor compel members of other churches who are closer to our church than their own to switch their membership. It is, rather, an expression of an ideal which I believe has Biblical support and which I wish Christians near and far would seriously consider as their approach to membership for the bolstering of the local church’s witness. Nowhere in the Bible is there a “thus saith the Lord” verse to command us to be members of a faithful Gospel church within our own local community. There are, however, many principles and practical considerations, which if taken collectively provide a compelling case to this end. Historically, until modern modes of transport made this possible, worshippers were constrained by geography to worship locally. Whether that was in ancient times or the 19th Century, one could only go as far as their feet or horse would take them (though in exceptional circumstances the faithful would travel great distances to be with fellow believers and worship). If you lived between churches then you had to make an informed decision. This, and sometimes demographics or denominational affiliations, is why historically there were many more centres of Christian worship. But was this or is this question purely practical? I believe the closest Bible verse to a command on this subject suggest, “no.” Acts 1:8 says, “And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem [local], Judea and Samaria [regional and national] and to the ends of the earth [international].” Yes, this is a key structure in Acts regarding the outward spread of the Gospel. Yes, it is likewise a direct commission to the 11 disciples. However, indirectly it is still a command for missions which directs us to be involved in local missions, the chief vehicle of which is the local church. Enter the automobile, which revolutionized so much in our culture, including the Church. Now if you were of this faith and order you didn’t need to worry about relying on another church or starting one in your community, you could just drive to the next. If you got in a fight with someone you didn’t need to be reconciled, you could just drive to the next town. If something didn’t suit you or you got bored at this church you could simply drive along to that church. Transportation enabled us to defy geography but with it we also succumbed to many temptations to put self ahead of the interests of the local church. The American President JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” That quote may be changed to say, “Ask not what your church can do for you but what you can do for your church.” Churches are fundamentally not service providers but equipping centres for discipleship (and mission). I’ve even know some Christians to be so selfless they’ve collectively moved into a community with no church in order to reach it for the Gospel. We ought not to see the church as simply a service provider to meet our needs but to contribute to its spiritual vitality so it might bring a Gospel blessing to our community. Christians are inherently other focused just as Christ Himself was selfless. We honour the head of the body by doing what it best for the local manifestation of it. Now, there are legitimate reasons to be part of a church outside of your local community: maybe there is no Gospel church; no church of your faith and order; maybe the local church is orthodox but dead (perhaps you could be the Lord is calling to fan its flame?); maybe your temporarily seeking to bolster another church; maybe language or ethnicity is an issue (perhaps you could learn the local language?). However, I know far too many Christians who travel past several Gospel churches to arrive at their church of choice, thus wasting time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere (it also means you cannot be as involved in your church in areas like fellowship, events, outreach, etc). What might drive this? Well, rather than a principled commitment to the ideal of the local church what about the great ways of thinking that shape our society and which have sadly infiltrated the church: individualism, consumerism and materialism. The individualistic church seeker does what they want rather than what Christ is calling them to (Is there self-will, die to self; Is there conflict, seek to resolve it even if it may be difficult or uncomfortable). This feeds over into consumerism. The consumeristic seeker is driven by personal preference: that church doesn’t have good music (Is music all a church is about? Might you be called to use your gift of music to help that church?); they don’t have any children’s programming (Might your family be called to be the seed to help initiate a children’s ministry there?); It’s tradition, it’s my family church (While that’s wonderful, there are other ways to meaningfully support a church you have strong ties to); I’d have to leave my family or friends and make news ones (yes, what a joy—to meet new brothers and sisters in Christ that is!). The materialistic seeker likes to boast in how big or wealthy or physically beautiful or gifted their church is (Is this not pride knocking? May the Lord be calling you to devote your gifts and giftings to the support of some needy cause?). Even though the Bible stands opposed to such “isms” in our culture, these alone are not the primary principle to illuminate this reflection. The foundational principle is Act 1:8 and how we can be part of Christ’s local mission if we’re not a part of His local body? I believe once a church has a sizable contingent coming from one community, we shouldn’t make our building bigger, but instead partner with other area Gospel churches to do a church plant (I dream of planting an evangelical church in Durham, Chatsworth, Flesherton (?) and Dundalk). If you don’t have a local church, ask your church about considering a church plant. This is a vast subject and as such I cannot cover every consideration. It’s an area which may raise many questions and I hope will fuel further reflection. If you feel led to relocate what should you do? First, tell both your Elders and the Elders of the prospective church about your considerations. Ask them to pray with you. It can be difficult to the present church in terms of tithes and offerings, rotas, responsibilities and friendships to simply up and move, so if a move is decided lay out a timeline that best serves your present church and enables you to transition to your local church. Slowly get involved in the local church; seek to maintain meaningful ties with the old. Let people know why you are doing what you are doing. Godly ideals are always laudable to follow so let’s love Christ by loving the local church. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.—Galatians 6:10
I “discovered” this verse several years ago when reading through Galatians. Since then it has become one of my favourites. Let’s break it into three parts and consider what it teaches us:
God first loved us and so we love Him in return. This is our act of love in worship in response to His grace (1st half of the Great Commandment). As He loves us we are then enabled to love others. However, again, our first port of call to display such love—contrary to popular belief—is not the world but the Church. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “by this shall all men [the world] know that you are My disciples, that you [Christians] have love one for another [the Church].” (Jn 13:35). God’s plan is that the Church be an example of renewed humanity to this end, that when unbeliever’s see our good works done in love to fellow believers: it validates God’s love and the Gospel, makes wonderful our adoption into God’s family so we’ll praise Him more, and is a powerful means to cause unbelievers to want to be renewed themselves and join God’s renewed humanity called the Church. Gal 6:10 is an ingenious truth and plan! In our renovations and move to the new house—during Covid-19—it is a verse I’ve seen lived out by many brothers and sisters as they’ve helped us in unbelievable ways.  Below is a visual representation of what has been presented above:  To God all glory, praise, and love be now and ever given by saints below and saints above, the Church in earth and heaven. (Charles Wesley, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”) It can get lonely thinking you are all alone. That is why a big perspective on what the Church is vitally essential. It reminds us that if we are in Christ we are part of a great cloud of witnesses. The Church militant describes believers who are still alive and still battling on for the Lord in this life. The Church triumphant describes those who’ve won the battle, fought the fight and finished the race, those whose spirits have gone to be in the presence of the Lord and who await the final Resurrection. Here are all of those whose faith was in the promises of God, which point to Christ and are Christ: Abel, Noah, the Patriarchs, Gideon, David, the disciples and all believers since. We pick up this distinction from places such as Rev 7 where John witnesses fellow believers worshiping the Lord in heaven. How encouraging a thought it is to know that we are not alone. Not only is Christ with us in Word and Spirit, but what is more, we are part of a great company of believers, far greater than our isolated geographic distribution allows us to fathom, not only here on earth, but in heaven above. In the words of Heb 12:1 the Church triumphant grace the side-lines of our race and cheer us on as it were. May we be encouraged that as a Christian we are part of the Church militant and triumphant! It can get lonely thinking you are all alone. That is why a big perspective on what the Church is vitally essential. It reminds us that if we are in Christ we are part of a great cloud of witnesses. The Church militant describes believers who are still alive and still battling on for the Lord in this life. The Church triumphant describes those who’ve won the battle, fought the fight and finished the race, those whose spirits have gone to be in the presence of the Lord and who await the final Resurrection. Here are all of those whose faith was in the promises of God, which point to Christ and are Christ: Abel, Noah, the Patriarchs, Gideon, David, the disciples and all believers since. We pick up this distinction from places such as Rev 7 where John witnesses fellow believers worshiping the Lord in heaven. How encouraging a thought it is to know that we are not alone. Not only is Christ with us in Word and Spirit, but what is more, we are part of a great company of believers, far greater than our isolated geographic distribution allows us to fathom, not only here on earth, but in heaven above. In the words of Heb 12:1 the Church triumphant grace the side-lines of our race and cheer us on as it were. May we be encouraged that as a Christian we are part of the Church militant and triumphant! This might sound like a very perplexing statement but I believe it is true; allow me to explain.
The Church, made up of baptized believers in Jesus Christ, ought to be an inclusive welcoming community, yet it is at the same time an exclusive, or distinct, body. Too often Christians fail to appreciate this paradox and opt for one extreme (inclusivity) or the other (exclusivity). Let’s see how this paradox is true, and ought to naturally flow from who we are, taking as our example the teachings of Jesus: INCLUSIVE Jesus was inclusive, if by that definition we mean welcoming or not embracing a judgementalism. He didn’t care if the person was the vilest sinner, He sought to be inclusive of everyone, for He had come as the Saviour of the world (in fact He said that He came to save not the “self-righteous” but sinners, Lk 5:32):
EXCLUSIVE Yet, just as Jesus met people where they were, He didn’t desire them to stay there. In fact in the same breadth in which He displayed an inclusive spirit He made some very exclusive statements. His inclusivity serves to build trust for He wants us to exclusively trust in and follow him and there find true inclusion in the exclusive body of Christ, an entry that can only come through trusting in Him alone:
In an age that champion’s unbridled inclusivity this paradox is a paradox indeed. In an age where Christian writers speak of people needing to “belong before they believe” the call to “believe before you belong” sounds harsh. Yet when it is matched by the inclusive spirit Jesus displayed, the latter loses much of its apparent harshness. We do need to help people feel like they belong, but through that honest welcome, to help them see they must believe if they are to truly belong, belong to Christ and be members of the local body. That is the paradox of the Church and it is the paradox of her Lord. I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it—Mt 16:18b
Sometimes it feels as if the visible church in Ontario is struggling, battles within, battles without, slow decline. In large part that is true, however, amongst faithful Gospel congregations there is hope, signs of growth, and indeed often already vitality. In light of all of this it is encouraging to see what Jesus said about His Church. A few observations may be drawn:
Yet still, does prevailing against mean the Church is really on the defensive or ought it to be understood as an offensive promise? Well, gates are a defensive structure in a city’s defence, so if it said, “and the gates heaven shall not prevail against the force of hell,” then it would clearly view things defensively, but that is not what we see. Rather, we see that hell is on the defensive, and neither now nor ultimately shall hell ultimately prevail against the forces of authentic Christianity. This is the normative promise[1] in Mt 16:18b, that as we are faithful, though hell may hurl its darts at us and try to block our advance, hell must decrease in power and the Church will increase until Jesus has put His enemies under His feet and the Church rules with Christ in heaven. So may we be faithful and look to the head and builder of the Church to do great things in Markdale as the Church increases and as Satan’s forces go on the defensive. [1] I say normative because sometimes in God’s providence faithful churches are persecuted and don’t grow. As a normative rule, however, Mt 16:18 stands. The seeker sensitive movement arose in the 80s and was an attempt in the post-revival age, and a post denominational age where many were disenchanted with traditional forms of church, to reach the masses for Christ.
With so many people giving up on Christianity, what could be done to stem the tide? As with the liberal project of seeking to accommodate culture at the expense of truth (which has failed miserably), the seeker sensitive movement, while in many ways laudable, attempted to do something similar and so fell short of its desired goal. Bands, skits, videos, cool preachers, etc, cannot in themselves save and transform and save, but rather a robust presentation of the Gospel and a life lived in light of God’s Word. The Willow Creek Church did a study on their brand of being seeker sensitive about a decade ago and discovered it was, “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Lots were coming to church, perhaps even becoming disciples of Jesus and joining the church, however, a committed level of discipleship was wanting. This raises the question: what is the purpose of the gathered church in relation to the people of God (aside from glorifying God in worship)? The answer is to equip the saints (Eph 4:12) and to build up God’s people in the most holy faith (Jd 1:20). We gather as Christians to be scattered as Christians. Whilst in our gathered state should be enjoyable (which is different than entertaining) and not a strange world to a visitor who might come along (as described by Justin Martyr in the early Church) and a place where the Gospel is proclaimed, the gathered church’s purpose is nevertheless not evangelism, but discipleship. If our services seek to provide robust opportunities for worship and discipleship, primarily aimed at believers, but accessible to earnest inquirers, the result would be that our churches would not be a mile wide and an inch deep, but a mile deep… It doesn’t necessarily then mean we’d only be an inch wide (though I think even this is preferable to a breadth that may only be visibly “Christian”). What it means is the church will be so strengthened to fulfil the Great Commission that the place of evangelism and mission (not precluding evangelistic services or corporate acts of evangelism) would be in our homes and schools and neighbourhoods, and friendships as robust disciples of Jesus Christ. And THAT, is how the early Church grew so explosively. So may we take Jesus’ command to make disciples seriously, be robust to that end in all we do, and as we seek to fulfil the GC, trust that the Lord will build His Church. The Lord’s Sweetest Blessings, Chris |
