Independency

As many who know me will attest I love the local church because Jesus loves the local church. It is the primary vehicle through which the Lord works. It is the visible expression of membership in the universal church. Acts spends 16% of the time talking about the universal church and 84% speaking about the local church. Local churches are autonomous, or independent bodies; that is with Christ as the head over the Elders and congregation there is no organization or denomination that ultimately force a congregation to do or believe X,Y or Z, though many congregations choose to affiliate with other likeminded believers.

We may be independent but really we should exist independency with other Gospel churches. Independency is seeing independent churches working together for the cause of Christ. All too often local churches can exist as silos as if the rest of the church did not exist. This is surely to the detriment of Christianity.
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We see the principle of independency well illustrated in Baptist history and the Bible:

• Bible: the example of the churches taking up an offering for the church in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1); the tight network as seen in Ro 16; missionaries and apostles from different churches intermingling (1 Cor 4:17).
• Baptist History: The earliest Baptists of our DNA were the Particular Baptists of London. Coming into being in the early 1640s in 1644 they published a joint statement of faith (in large part to show that they were orthodox). One belief was to be critical to the explosion of the Baptist cause as they worked together to further the Great Commission, XLVII (47)- “And although the particular congregation be distinct and several bodies, every one a compact and knit city in itself; yet are they all to walk by one and the same Rule, and by all means convenient to have the counsel and help one of another in all needful affairs of the church, as members of one body in the common faith under Christ their only Head. (1 Cor. 4:17; 14:33, 36; 16:1; Mat. 28:20; 1 Tim.3:15; 6:13–14; Rev. 22:18–19; Col. 2:6, 19; 4:16).”

This is why, for example, MBC is partnering with the Blue Water Association of Fellowship Baptist Churches to launch a discipleship ministry called Barnabas. While a larger church might be able to resource an initiative like this by itself for small and medium size churches it will allow us to share our pastoral and teaching resources to equip the saints in the region for the work of the ministry.

This is why we already partner in Association pastors’ gatherings and New Life Camp, why local pastors meet for Bible study and prayer, exchange pulpits and why MBC holds Christian events of interest for other churches.
Independent; yet independency.