A Hazy History Begins to Clear

For many long years I despised the church…meaning that I detested the “institution” of the church. My problem wasn’t the people who gathered. My problem wasn’t the Bible. My problem wasn’t God or Jesus. My problem wasn’t baptism or communion. My only puzzlement was the eldership, largely because I didn’t really know what it was or how it functioned beyond communion and tithing duties. Yet I wouldn’t even truly say that this was a legitimate problem in my own mind. The irony of all that is this: If my problem was not in any of these fundamental aspects of God’s gathered people (the church local) then what was really my problem? One thing I know for sure now is that my problem really had nothing to do with the church. But for a long time I didn’t really know what else to call it. There were, and are, many conceptualizations about church that have nothing to do with the church local. The reason I say “the church local” or “local church” is because I realize now that so much of my animosity was placed there. But what is the “church local”. 

John Piper has a good definition of the local church: “A local church is a group of baptized believers who meet regularly to worship God through Jesus Christ, to be exhorted from the word of God, and to celebrate the Lord’s supper under the guidance of duly appointed leaders.” I feel that this definition is very biblically grounded, God-centered, and Christ exalting. I can, however, see how someone might look at Piper’s definition and say, “There are many parts of his definition that I can’t agree with.” Let’s imagine a few objections.

(1) Baptized Believers: I believe the objection to this part of the local church definition would probably go something like this: “So you’re saying that if I am a believer in Christ but not baptized then I’m not really a Christian and therefore not really part of the local church.” I’ve heard objections like this, or varying incarnations of it, hundreds of times. My response is always the same: If your faith is truly in Christ, why then would you not be baptized. Do you not know that Christ said that baptism was a righteous act and that it was necessary for any believer to seek to fulfill all that is righteous (see Matthew 3:13-17). Any “believer” who would say that baptism is not an essential, or important, part of a Christians faith, is someone that I would question. Baptism is not your salvation although that is what many churches teach. Faith in Christ is your salvation. However, I believe that baptism will be a natural part of your faith in Christ. If Christ said that baptism was righteous and that it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, why then would any Christian argue against the merit of baptism? 

(2) Meeting Regularly: So much emphasis has been placed on “attendance” in church culture that it almost seems that the validity of your faith in Christ is based upon how often your butt is in the pew. Chris Stewart spoke directly to this in a recent post when he said, “The problem with that line of thinking is that it puts ‘being at the church meeting’ at such an elevated proof or evidence of faith in Christ, when in fact there are many who attend church meetings faithfully yet have no faith.” Now, many people have taken this stance on church attendance to mean that attending a regular church gathering is not important. Chris is well aware that this line of thinking can be, and has been, perverted by people who refuse to hear the whole message of why church meetings are important. Church meetings are not important in the sense of mere attendance as evidence of faith (although it can be in part), yet attendance alone is not enough. I’ve heard many people say, “You don’t have to attend church to be a Christian.” While I would agree with that, only in part, I would also have this question to ask of the one asserting this claim, “If you are a Christian, why would you not desire to seek out a local gathering of believers in Christ and attend it with a level of regularity?” Does Hebrews 10:24-25 mean nothing to your life? Those verses say, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” 

Attending a church meeting on a regular basis can and will have an affect on your life if that “church” is truly a church. Does that supposed church worship God through the truth of Jesus Christ, are they exhorted from the word of God, do they endorse baptism as a valid part of any believers faith (be careful that they’re not teaching that baptism is what brings salvation into your life), do they honor the Lord’s supper in communion, and do they have a clearly identified structure of leadership? If the answer to each of these questions is yes, then you are attending a biblically based local church.

(3) Duly Appointed Leaders: Leadership structures in Christianity, like leadership structures in any area of society, can be made and conducted poorly. Therefore, many young and developing churches are not too hasty to develop them. This can be good and bad. It can mean that time and care is being taken to develop a solid foundation for leadership within the local church body. It can also mean that the development of leadership is being altogether avoided. Some people feel that rigid structuring of leadership leads to legalism within the church body. I would be lying to you if I said that this is not a danger. Such things usually happen when the leadership is not being developed with a firm God-centered, Christ exalting, biblically based mentality about their roles as elders or deacons etc. However, just because this danger exists doesn’t mean that we should simply avoid it. The Bible illustrates very clearly to us that leadership is an integral part of any healthy local church body. If leaders are not important why did Paul appoint elders to the churches at Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Acts 14? Leadership was a natural and expected part of the early Christian church. Why should it not be the same for the modern Christian church? If leadership is not important, why then does Paul give us such lengthy descriptions of leadership qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? If there were no purpose to these roles of leadership, why then does Paul tell us that Christ has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the purpose of building up the body of Christ and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry? (see Ephesians 4:12) Leadership in the local church body isn’t just a good idea, it is necessary for the work of the ministry. The Bible supports this claim. Why would any Christian refuse to support it? 

Now that I’ve presented a definition of the local church and developed a few objections and responses to it, I want to close with some brief thoughts regarding why I have since come to love the local church.

I said earlier that my true disdain with “church” really lay within the institution of the local church. What I determined in those days was that I had no need of a local church body. I deemed that there was little to no point in corporate gatherings. My philosophy was that gathered groups of people under a system of governance will always tend to become puppets under an increasingly tyrannical system increasingly obsessed with power and status. The visual representation in mind was that of lab rats following the decrees of aged men (supposedly wise) because these dignitaries of the institution offered salvation in the form of release from Hell (the joy and glory of Christ never seemed to be a big push). Meanwhile, the dewans of the institution were busy picking the well lined pockets of the rats in the sanctuary trap. As you can tell, cynicism ran high in my character. While I still believe that there are many perversions of the local church body in the world, I no longer find myself in a haze of hatred regarding the beauty of a biblically defined local church.

I consider Oasis to be the local church body that I love and participate in. But more than that, I feel a very specific connection, a certain kind of belonging, to the local church body of Oasis in Meigs county. I have come to believe that being part of a local church body is essential for any believer. Can you worship God alone and in very small groups outside of the local church gathering? Of course you can. But you can also do that in a larger corporate setting. Why would any Christian not want to gather together as a local church body with many other like-minded Christians and give praise, glory, and honor to the Lord together? Can you study the word of God alone and be exhorted by it without the help of a pastor in a local church body? Of course you can. But why would you not want to gather with a local church body to hear the word, talk about the word, dig into the word as a community of believers, and strengthen one another through it? We should never meet together out of mere repetitious habit. We should meet together with a purpose. That purpose is this (another Piper quote): “The ultimate goal of the church is to live in such a way that God’s wisdom (and all the other aspects of his glory) will be displayed to the world and the hosts of heaven. The church’s job is to live so that people can see that God is real.” We do this in two ways. We do it as individuals in our everyday lives no matter where we are and we also do this as a gathered body in our local church. 

If a local church does nothing but gather together on appointed days and makes no attempt to make all aspects of God’s glory known to the community around them then they are displaying that they, as a gathered body, have no desire to spread the gospel together. What then is the point of gathering together? Is it just because we come together to make ourselves individually stronger so that we can be strong individuals for the purpose of God? If such was the case then it would mean that you see the benefits of the local church body as primarily serving the interests of the individual, not the purpose of God on a worldwide or even community based scale. The local church body isn’t just a filling station for the spiritually depleted yet that is how thousands of Christians treat it year in and year out. Such a local church body would be dead and in need of burial. 

What is our fruit as the local church body of Oasis in Meigs county? How are we making all aspects of God’s glory known to those within the body as well as those in the community that surrounds our local church body? These are important questions to answer. There are two things we must never do as Christians in relation to our understanding of the purpose of the individual believer and the local church body.

(1) We must never elevate the church meeting above the glory and purpose of God. This would lead to legalism. The presence of legalism often indicates the absence of the genuine local church body. 

(2) We must never elevate the importance of the individual to a place of arrogance that says that the individual has no use or purpose within or for the biblically defined local church body. 

It is proper to have a love for your local church body. It is proper to have a commitment to your local church body. While the local church body is not more important than God himself, the local church body is clearly part of God’s design for believers. Therefore we should not have a disdain for it. We should instead seek God’s wisdom on how to exist as the local church body for the purpose of revealing all aspects of His glory. I believe that God calls us to be strong as individuals, strong as the local church, and strong as the universal church (the collective whole number of the redeemed who look to Christ as their life and their sovereign authority). In order to do this we must first embrace a true love and passion for the commands that God has handed down to us through the Bible. We must learn to look to God as the all glorious creator of our lives (which we’ve been given to exalt him). God must be our strength, our sufficiency, our fulfillment, and our true joy. Once we have that, we can then begin to learn what it means to be a steadfast servant of the Lord. It is only then that we can begin to truly love and appreciate the universal and the local church body. I pray that all of us who call Oasis our church “home” would be filled with the clarity of God’s understanding for the design of the local church body. I pray that we, as a local body of God’s purpose in Meigs county, would seek to make all aspects of his glory known through the good works (the fruit) of faith. I pray that we would not be found guilty as a body of believers whose faith is dead. Father, help our actions, decisions, and words to be all satisfying and all glorifying to you. 

Comments

[Josh Lynch]

Good thoughts, Chad. The validity of the local church is a topic that is often overlooked. It is probably the single most important subject in Chrisitan "religion" in this social landscape. Chad isn't alone in his assumptions about local church; Most people can accept Jesus for who he is, less the bible, and most would reject Christianity in a consistent form in their life with others in leadership calling the shots. At the very heart of our social situation is the deconstruction of reality, institution, and structures of any kind as the heart of man is revealed for what it is: flawed.
In the infancy of the information age, we have an overload of headlines in our collective face every day: Corporate scandal and thievery by a few executives despite the thousands of blue collar workers filling their coffers. (think Enron) The holy hypocracy of child abuse/pedophilia by the percieved gentle men who were supposed to be close to God have shown nationwide strongholds of such instances come crashing down on the faithful who put so much faith in the Catholic Church's heirarchy. May I not leave out Protestant churches: A college dorm-mate of mine was found guilty of statutory rape of a girl in his youth group as he served as a high school youth minister in Indiana.
Even more, a man on TV that I must use as an example, Benny Hinn is a TV Evangelist that does anything but have the stench of fraud ALL OVER him. Not only are his episodes steaming piles, his excessive TV sets and his well-documented living expenses and luxuries have been tracked and exposed by TV magazines like Dateline NBC.

The bottom line is that people are skeptic of terms such as "humility" "holiness" and "sacrifice" when imperfect man at the helm.

Man, what a horrible picture I've painted. Good thing Chad did all the positive heavy lifting. There is hope! If God is at our center, we have nothign to worry about. Even among poor leadership, if God is at our center, God still prevails. God's glory will be revealed in us as he emboldens even the most shy, and exposes the wicked (yes, that includes those feigning as righteous). Judgement is the Lord's, which is why I will try to continue to be the oil in the engine of God's church, and not an antagonist.

[Josh Lynch]

Man, I need a spellcheck on that post.