Read pt. I here and pt. II here.

Read Church Covenant here. 

This article is especially difficult for our anti-institutional age where nothing can be trusted, nothing is true and there is no higher authority than self.
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However, Christ is the Head of the Church and has vested Her, and by extension Her leaders, with authority (c.f. Great Commission). However, it is not a self-serving top-down authority but an inverted pyramid. Whereas the Church is not to be an institution that is to be served but to serve (Mk 10:45), so too its leaders aren’t to be served but to serve. Authority is the right to do something. Christ exercises authority on earth through His local bodies or congregations. We represent His holiness, proclaim Him and do all He has called us to do in mission, etc. To help enable this, Christ, through His local body in prayer, appoints men who fulfil biblical qualifications to teach, lead, administer the ordinances, discipline, etc. We are called to respect the Church, as Christ’s representative body on earth, and also Her officers, as representatives of the local body. Insofar as they and the Church follow Scripture, we are to follow their/Her lead, respect what they say, help them, seek their counsel, etc. The Church is God’s gift to mankind and so too are leaders a gift to the Church. Neither are unaccountable either. Churches are accountable to Christ and His Word and other local bodies. Leaders too are accountable to their congregations, even as we follow their biblical example. (This balance is called Elders’ Led Congregationalism, Handbook 13.1[1]). In the Bible respect and submission, rightly understood, are good virtues. To show disregard for Christ’s Church and Her Officers is to disregard Christ Himself, preferring pride to humility.

We also humble ourselves to all that God has said in His Word, not just leadership, but other matters of governance. Our Handbook is meant to be an accessible document that reflects the precepts and principles of Scripture we believe are in Scripture and which binds our community life together (both when we agree with a decision and when we don’t). Just as a skeleton without flesh is lifeless, so too a flesh without bones is useless. The body of Christ has bones (structure) and flesh (Spirit). When we follow God’s way, things go better for us. It is also in those difficult moments, where something is tested, when there is pushback, when there is legal challenge, that we become very grateful for agreed upon processes in our Handbook under which we all agree to love and serve the Lord.


[1] Congregationalism, in its extreme, means the whole congregation must decide on every little detail. This is paralyzing. Presbyterianism (Elders’ led), in its extreme, along with other forms of singular hierarchies, can lead to abuses in leadership (not to mention the body not being involved, only the head). An Elders’ led Congregationalism is a better reflection of what we see in Scripture. Here, Christ is the Head of the body who appoints leaders who lead it, as they engage with the members of the body, and yet which retains responsibility for significant matters.

We have begun a New Year. It is no longer 2022 but 2023. That is a boundary. The Bible says that boundaries are a God given gift to be respected. A classic verse on the subject is Proverbs 22:28:
Do not remove the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.
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What is that about? It means that in ancient Israel farmers marked the boundaries of their lands (allotted by God through Moses) by large stones or piles of stones. A greedy neighbour could sneakily move those stones over time and enlarge his land at the expense of his neighbour.

The world is filled with myriads of boundaries at God’s design. Because God designed them they are good and not to be understood in a negative way as many might see words like ‘division.’ They are good and we’d do well to respect them. Some boundaries like those at Creation are fixed and immoveable: day and night, land and sea, etc. Other boundaries are moveable. Yet it is only in our pride that we seek to move what God has fixed. This is because in our desire to be as God (Gen 3:5) we don’t respect God or others but move those stones to our own advantage. (Even the Creator-creature distinction is a boundary, Ro 1:25. We can’t actually move it but we try!). How we respond to God’s boundaries can be appropriate and inappropriate, good and evil.  All sins and troubles, particularly of the inter-personal kind, stem from, in pride, breaking God’s boundaries.

Considering just some of the good God-given boundaries that we find in the Bible:

• Between families, or parents and their children’s families, Gen 2:24- Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
  • Family (both parents and grown children) are a wonderful gift. We should always love to spend time with them. However, it is God’s design that when a child is married there is a new family unit created. It is to be respected. Too many of our relational problems today come from children not letting go of the umbilical cord and learning to live in independence with their spouse or parents not relinquishing the umbilical cord and failing to respect the new family unit’s independence.
• Between neighbours, Prov 25:17- Let your foot be seldom in your neighbour’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.
  • A good neighbour is a gift. But discretion teaches us when it is appropriate to visit (invited, to bring back a garbage bin that blew away, etc) and when it is not (in the middle of the night when there is no fire). It also teaches us what frequency is appropriate (probably not three times a day) and how we visit (e.g. stopping at the front gate on your way to work or always coming round the back door).
• Between a spouse and someone who is not your spouse, Ex 20:14- Do not commit adultery.
  • God’s boundary is that the marriage union is special. Husbands and wives share intimacy together in many ways that is not to be shared with another. To push into a marriage to obtain what is not yours is theft, it is breaking a boundary.

When these boundaries are respected, of course, there will be healthy life-giving relationships between parents-children, neighbours and spouses and other couples.

Perhaps with this in mind you might now see more boundaries in Scripture and identify them in the world around us.

May we repent of boundary breaking, seek the boundary Maker for forgiveness, and find the Holy Spirit’s renewing power to respect the boundaries that God has established for our good.

​In the midst of many other current matters of concern, we’ve witnessed the complex eruption of civil unrest across the USA this week. While one may value particulars within a culture that may be linked to ethnicity, the Bible condemns racism as all humans are created in God’s image (Gen 1:27) and as Christians, many tribes, tongues and nations of believers form the body of Christ and will spend eternity together (Rev 7:9). But what shall we make of civil unrest? Closer to home I have even heard of some churches planning a prayer protest to the Ontario Governments continued emergency order that does not allow meetings of faith groups to take place (when many businesses have been allowed this freedom). What should we make of all of these responses? In the 18th Century violence erupted in the French Revolution and in the following decades of the 19th Century there were revolutions across Europe; yet Britain was spared. Why? There were at least two reasons for this: a general, albeit minimal, care for the poor that did not exist in many country; but also the Evangelical Revival. Wesley, Whitefield and others, transformed nominal Britain into a much altered Christian nation. A Biblical belief lies at the heart of why Britain did not see violent upheavals for central to the Bible is the call for Christians to obey and to submit to the authorities (Ro 13; 1 Pe 2:13) in matters where they have not transgressed God’s laws (Mt 22:21). Submission to God appointed authority is a good thing, for God wills it. As we submit to Governments we submit to God. Like any other matter of faith, we cheerfully obey in faith. If we have questions or concerns, no matter how deep seated, we bring these forward peacefully and civilly. Why, for Peter goes on to say, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles [un-believers] honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

This is one of the longest words in our languages (and also very hard to say many times fast!).

It, along with its antonym, disestablishmentarianism, is what this post is about.

We live in a time of heightened individualism. Even institutions like the state are now commonly and even brazenly flouted. This tension has been heightened during the pandemic, with some heeding government orders and others protesting or even rebelling against them.

How ought Christians to respond to governments during a pandemic? During church closures?

There is certainly a wide spectrum of opinions on the matter of closures, with some radically wanting to keep things shut and others radically wanting things to open (I’m probably in the middle leaning towards cautious reopening). Wherever your opinion rests, such a reflection raises the question of how Christians should respond to government orders.

Jesus famously, and very helpfully said, in Mt 22:21: give to Caesar [the gov’t] the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s. In other words, there is the kingdom of this world which is ending and the Kingdom of God which has come/ is coming. There are two worlds, two cities; yet Christians live in both and so have a responsibility to God, firstly, but also to authorities whom God has set over us for our good. The general principle is that if the authorities ask anything of us that is contrary to God’s law then we are justified in thoughtfully disobeying; but if they ask us to do something that doesn’t go against God’s law we are called to submit, even when we may not like it. This is the spirit of Ro 13 and 1 Peter 2:13–5.

When it comes to the pandemic and church closures, if only churches were asked to close and not Mosques and Synagogues, then there would be an anti-Christian streak in the order that ought not to be obeyed. However, it is a level playing field with all public gatherings and though my thoughts or your thoughts may be this or that on the subject, whether we find it hard or believe otherwise, the government believes it for our good, it doesn’t contravene God’s law (for we have found creative, though imperfect, ways to fellowship by means of technology) and so we must submit.

But submission, the very word a foul stench in society’s dictionary, ought not to be for the Christian. We are called to gladly submit to God appointed authorities so long as they do not ask of us anything that goes against God’s laws (It is an act of faith/trust): I, as a pastor, submit to Christ; Christians are called to submit to their church elders; wives to husbands; children to fathers and mothers; employees to employers and all to the state; and even to fellow believers. When we are disestablishmentarians our hearts are filled with pride, rebellion, self-centredness, anger… Yet when we joyfully submit in faith to who God has called us to submit to, beginning with Himself, the Spirit produces in us love, peace, contentment and joy.

So whatever and whomever the Lord may be calling us to submit to today, may we do so as Christians cheerfully. And whether it be to governments, employers or churches, may our respect to them and God’s word enhance our reputation to the glory of Christ.[1]


[1] I’m thinking here of churches that have rebelled against government closure orders. They have lost the respect of civil leaders. When persecution comes for other moral matters, they will not be remembered favourably. However, I pray that as the vast majority of Christians have submitted to these orders, the Lord would use this favourably in our civil leaders eyes when they think about persecuting the respectful and obedient for matters which we cannot agree to their laws, laws that God against God’s laws, that they would think twice and remember how we submitted, for a long time, by forgoing our Lord’s Day and other gatherings, so dear to us, out of obedience to them and our Lord.