Tod Bolsinger

Liar, Liar, Pew's on Fire

I am off this weekend for a retreat with 50 Junior highers and leaders for our bi-annual Confirmation retreat.  This great group of young people are finishing up a ten week class preparing them to write a statement of faith and join our church as members.  This weekend, I will be hanging out with them with basically three messages: 1) We are all members of one another. 2)This is your church, too. 3) I am your pastor and not just your parents' pastor. 

One of joys of my church is how deeply connected our youth and young adults are with the rest of the congregation.  We are becoming a genuinely multi-generational church.  I also know that many, many churches in our culture today would do about anything to have either 50 kids even hanging around their church or anything near that amount of people joining their church at all.  I don't take lightly that we are in a wonderful season of blessing in our church and I feel the responsibility and joy of being a steward of that blessing very deeply. 

Further, the joy is all the more for me because this group of junior high students includes my son Brooks and his friends.   I have known some of these kids since they were in preschool and now I get to be with them as they prepare to join our church.  It is a real rite of passage moment for both the young people and their pastor (who is also a parent of one of the young people!)

I mention this for two reasons. 

1) To ask you to please pray for the weekend.  If the "children are our future" then I want them to become more deeply committed to Christ and the body of Christ for both their good and the good of the future of the church. 

2) I am profoundly aware that we must continue to make disciples and not just church members and attenders. It's not enough to get people to "show up and join up", we all must continue to "grow up". A recent article in Christianity Today magazine points to the amount of self-deception reported by Christians when asked a simple question like, "Did you yourself happen to go to church this past week."   According to the article, the Gallup people have been asking that question for decades and the answer is always the same: about 40% of Americans say that they have, in fact, been in church that past Sunday. But when that self-report study is matched up against church reports of attendance, the number of actual people in the pew is closer to 20%.  So, 1 out of every five people in the poll are lying about being in the pew.  Embarrassing really and sad, too. But what else do we make of that?

For me, this is a most interesting issue.  At exactly the time that many people are saying that church membership and attendance are increasingly irrelevant, there is still within our culture a great deal of internal pressure (the poll is anonymous) to be church goers.   Parents encourage their teenagers to join the church, teenagers at our church are encouraging their friends and we see our numbers swelling as a result.  People want to be in church, and think that things like worship and church membership really are important, even if they aren't living up to their own, even stated, intentions.

But, people like George Barna have rightly pointed out that the difference between good intentions and good discipleship is often quite large and made worse by our own tendency to think we are doing better than we are. 

So, while understanding and hopeful by even the desire that many people have to be a good church folk, I recognize that there is still much, much more to do with we want our church's on fire with genuine renewal.  Who knows? Maybe, this future generation are the "little children" who will lead us.

K is for...

Back when Beth and I lived in Altadena, California, just down the street from us was a bakery called "Patticakes."  It was one of those amazing places where everything looks as good as it tastes and virtually every breakfast item included chocolate.  But make no mistake, nothing there was cheap.  Everything was delicious, beautiful and frightfully expensive.

I remember sitting there one morning eating a chocolate muffin and drinking a latte while a young couple came into to get a quote for a wedding cake.  The owner pulled out a book that featured articles from Bon Appetit praising her wedding cakes, showed them spectacular professional photographs of cakes she had made in the past, and then finally the price sheet. 

I watched this all and smiled.  The bride was looking at the groom pleadingly.  Her face saying, “Honey, wouldn’t this be beautiful?  This is exactly the kind of wedding cake I have always wanted.”  He looked like he was choking.  Being a guy, I know what he was thinking as he looked at that price sheet, “A cake?  How about a killer big screen TV?  It’s about the same amount of money.”  But he was a smart boy; he kept his mouth shut, even as he tried to calculate how many months salary would be gobbled down by people in less than 15 minutes. 

And right at the very moment when the unspoken tension was the highest, the bakery owner appeared with a tray of assorted pieces of wedding cake that they could sample. 

Two bites later, eyes rolled back in his head in chocolate induced ecstasy, the cheapskate groom was ordering this cake for everyone he had ever met. 

You see the difference was in the tasting.  Once we taste what we really want, the cost is not the issue.  Once we learn that we don’t have to settle for the life given to us by thieves and bandits who only want to sell something to us, use us, manipulate us, market to us, or make us live out their vision of life, we are able to really listen to the one who offers us entryway to the life we really want. 

For the life that God intended us to have.  For the life we were made to have.  For the life that Jesus came to bring us, and died to secure for us.  For the life of security, freedom, and well-being.  For the life that is both eternal and abundant. 

My friends, church is for getting a foretaste of the kingdom.  It is community that whets our appetite for new creation.  It is where we get a small sliver of the wedding cake of the feast of the lamb that will be for all of us who enter eternal life through him.  And the communion of the church is the taste that should linger on our lips as we live for Christ each day.

For the last of my alphabetical list of qualities that make a church a church I want to skip to the letter K and the most nebulous, perhaps the most important and at the same time, most humbling characteristic:  K is for Kingdom Witness.

In the Presbyterian Church Book of Order, we affirm that the church is “the provisional demonstration of God’s new humanity.” In other words, the church is to be the gathering that is a foretaste of what God intends for all the world. 

For the church to be the true church it must faithfully point beyond itself in both its faithfulness and its weakness. it must be a true "foretaste" of the reign and rule of God and at the same time acknowledge that the wedding has not come.

Just like Jesus himself both proclaimed that the Kingdom of heaven had come near with his appearance, each church proclaims by its life together that a new day has dawned and the new creation is upon us.  But, in the same way, that Jesus work is both “accomplished” but not consummated until his triumphal return, the church is the unconsummated and incomplete foretaste of the reign of God to come.  Each specific church and the one universal Church exists to witness to the “now, but not yet” reality of the Kingdom of heaven that has been inaugurated in Jesus Christ but will not be consummated until Christ’s return.  The church is the taste of the wedding cake from the eternal feast. 

It is the “now but not yet” quality to the life of the church that reminds us that the church is both intended to be something more than just an ordinary human gathering, but will never rise above the frail humanity that requires saving in the first place.  It is not a gathering of all the “most committed” or “most like me” or “most helpful to my Christian walk” people.  It is wheat and weeds growing in one field but still revealing the abundant feast of the bread of life that will come from it. 

The church that is the true church knows that it is an incomplete church.  It is a witness to a reality that is not yet fulfilled.  It points beyond itself to the reign and rule of God.  In the new creation, we won’t need churches because all of creation will be church. But a true church knows that its job is to give a taste that will make all of creation hunger for the feast and settle for nothing less.

E is for…

Jumping back into my lengthy response to George Barna’s Revolution and lengthy list of qualities that “makes a church a church,” I’ll recap:

So far, I have listed the following characteristics:

• Apostolic Authority
• Biblical (“Berean”) Faithfulness
• Covenantal Relationships
• Discipline

Today and tomorrow the last two and then a finale to FINALLY put this series to rest.

Today: E is for Elimination of Social Boundaries

Yesterday I spent an hour with an 87-year-old man who told me stories while dabbing his eyes.  We laughed a bit, he’d cry some more and I’d get choked up and then laugh a bit more.  The hour flew by.  For him, 1940 was ten minutes ago.  The memories were thick as he told me about the 16-year-old hometown girl that he looked at a little differently when he came home from college.  He smiled sheepishly as he described their sneaking off to get married on a whim as soon as she was eighteen.  About how he was too afraid to tell her father what they’d done and how he spent his wedding night alone after he took her home.  He showed me the picture that he carried in his wallet, a sepia-toned beauty.  And with a catch in his voice he said, “That’s the way she looked when I met her and she looked exactly the same the day I buried her.”  They were married 64 years.

Somebody once said that the church is the only place on earth where time and space intersect.  With one glance, if we look closely enough, we will see multiple generations all in one place.  If the church is particularly exceptional, we’ll see various races and backgrounds.  The stories are thick indeed.  Where else in our world does a forty-something young family man who comes from a broken home get to spend time with a friend who stayed married to the same woman for six and a half decades? 

In an article for New Yorker Magazine, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink! and The Tipping Point, writes an appreciative article about Saddleback Church and the power of it’s small group model.  He cites sociologists, philosophers and The Purpose Driven Life”  who make the same claim:  The small group IS the church. 

Now as a pastor who believes that small groups are so important that we are in the middle of trying to hire a pastor who will do little else besides usher guests to our church through a new member class and into a small group, I believe that the power of small groups is unmistakable.  Especially in a place like Orange County ,California, which Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone) calls “a desert in social capital terms, (“The rate of mobility is really high.  It has long and anonymous commutes.  It’s a very friendless place…”) the need to connect with people who share friendship and interests and will encourage us to faithfulness in our Christian life is essential.

But that still doesn’t make the small group the church. 

Because my small group would never include my an 87 year old man who has been married 64 years.  It also would likely not include a single mom, Hispanic day laborer, an ipod-wearing, text-messaging teenager or the empty nester whose grown kids have moved back home.  The truth is that my small group also doesn’t include the man who thinks that my sermons are too impractical, the woman who doesn’t think that I care enough about missionaries, the man who thinks that I have too little courage and too much concern for being liked, or a host of others who are not part of my little circle of connection and accountability but are really, really important to my life because they are part of my church.

My church, if it is truly a church, must always be bigger than me and those like me.  The church is the committed gathering of those who are made up of every tribe and nation (Rev. 5), who are neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free (Galatians 3), who are not joined together simply because of proximity or social status or even such good and necessary things like friendship (virtually every first century ecclesia was that!), but who are joined together because of Christ across social boundaries.

The church to be the true church is to be a glimpse of what heaven will be like in all the diversity evident in creation and all the fulfillment of the new creation.  This characteristic is not only a qualifier for my small group, but a challenge for my church.  For the church to be the church, no matter how small it is, it must be getting broader. 

P.S. My criticisms of the tendency to claim too much for small groups notwithstanding, the Gladwell article is a really helpful resource for anyone who wants to a) better understand the phenomena that is Saddleback Church and b) wants evidence for the impact that an effective small group ministry can have within a church.  I highly recommend it.

D is for…

By far one of the most widely appreciated and misused Bible verses has got to be Matthew 18:20. In that verse, Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  I have heard this verse referenced as the “theme verse” for small group ministry, the rationale for house churches and the biblical reason given for why spending time with some friends or family members is all the church someone really needs.  And at first glance Jesus seems to say just that: “Get a couple of believers to gather, and I’ll join you.” 

However, the context makes it clear that when Jesus says that he is present with two or three Christians, it is when they are in the middle of a most difficult and unenviable task: reproving or correcting a fellow Christian.  This text is not the affirmation that Jesus is present when we gather even in small gatherings (though the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and passages like John 14 seem to make it clear that he does), but the assurance that Jesus will be with us when we do the most painful and necessary task for helping the church to grow in faithfulness:  That is “speaking the truth in love” (ala Ephesians 4:15) for the sake of correcting one Christian who has sinned against another Christian (See all of Matthew 18:15-20).

And the presence of Jesus in the middle of such muddle is one of the signs of the true church.  To continue my list of the ABC's of the true church: the D is for Discipline. And by discipline, I mean church discipline, the actual correcting or reproving of one believer by another or group of others because we belong to the same Community of faith, have taken the same vows and our “members of one another” (as the Bible says in 1 Cor 12:12.) 

The Knox Confession from the 16th century actually lists “ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue
nourished” as right up there with true preaching and right administration of the sacraments.

While discipline evokes fearsome images of “witch hunts,” “inquisitions” and “tribunals” in the New Testament, we actually have a good deal of frank conversation about the need for discipline wisely and rightly handled when our actions, beliefs or especially teaching (see James 3:1).  Besides Jesus’ discussion of what we do when someone sins against us in Matthew 18:15-20, we also have the example of Ananias and Saphira (and some very harsh discipline by the Spirit) in Acts 5 and Paul’s instructions on what to do with a couple who continue on in sin, even after they have been repeatedly confronted, in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13.  In Ephesians 4, the conversation about “speaking the truth in love” is a form of discipline whereby teaching errors are confronted and the body of Christ is equipped and strengthened.

Regardless of size or structure, one of the marks of the true church is whether its members are willing (in the words of the vows for officers in my denomination) to “abide by its discipline.”  I also believe that most of us are so uncomfortable with any kind of confrontation or accountability that we mostly just move on to another place whenever we are confronted or have a need to confront others.  Our commitment to each other is so

Now, once again, the forms of this discipline, the means for carrying it out and the degree of organization or institutional formality can vary from church to church.  (And there are horror stories out there of church discipline done badly.)  While some forms of discipline are certainly better or wiser than others, the most important thing is that if “a church is a church” that there are some agreed upon convictions, commitments and agreements as well as some clear, thoughtful caring and redemptive processes whereby “vice is repressed and virtue nourished.” 

Unfortunately there is so little healthy discipline in the church today that it raises the question of whether ANY church actually measures up here, I am afraid.  (And anticipating the inevitable question about my own denomination, I actually think this is, sadly, our most colossal failing at the moment.)

But the answer is more commitment and love for each other, even to the point of confrontation, not less. 

C is for...

Continuing my “list” of character qualities that make up a true church, I want to add to both Apostolic Authority and Biblical Faithfulness, the next quality: Covenantal Relationships. 

A few years back, eminent sociologist Robert Wuthnow conducted a very well-regarded study of the small group phenomenon in the United States.  His conclusions were published in two different books, the title of one, summed up the pervasive American passion for small groups and “community”: It was entitled, I Come Away Stronger. 

In nutshell, Wuthnow concluded that Americans like small groups for what “I” get out of being part of a “we”. 

I read the book as part of a doctoral seminar exploring community in contemporary American culture and the professor, Dr. Robert Banks, posed a question to us.  “If your small group folded or ceased to exist, what would be lost?”  Immediately, we theologically astute, community-minded, brighter-than-average, students responded with a list of woes:

“I would have less support for my Christian journey.”
“I would have less accountability for living out my Christian convictions.”
“I would have….less friendship, more loneliness, less fellowship, less tradition (…and on and on).”

Yup. Even those of us who were most interested in Christian community thought of it primarily or perhaps even solely as a means to make Christian individuals better Christian individuals.

Dr. Banks retort was, “How about this?  If my small group folded, there would be one less intentional community in the world.  There would be one less place where people have committed themselves to each other.  The social fabric of our society will be less knit together.  Have any of you thought of how less groups means more individual Christians living without commitments and connection and how that alone is something to grieve?” 

We hadn’t, of course.  Even for us, community was basically just another strategy for making “Me” better, stronger, holier, healthier…(fill in the blank).  And that conversation became deeply formative for my understanding of the church. While a small group is for most of us, a strategy for discipleship—even a deeply relational strategy—but the emphasis is on personal—that is MY discipleship.  And frankly, there is nothing all that "revolutionary" or counter-cultural or even uniquely Christian about wanting to be around others who make us better at something we care about. (A glee club, study group or cycling group does the same thing.)

The church however is not primarily about personal improvement (even spiritual improvement), but covenantal faithfulness.  It’s about a group of people brought together by the Holy Spirit to live out the covenant of God that is a reflection of the Triune God's own self-reflection.  Together, through our covenantal life we are to reflect the life and presence of God in our midst.  (Even amidst our brokenness and spiritual frailty, I would add.)

For a church to be a true church, the commitments made to each other must be more than expedient, convenient, even helpful or beneficial, they need to be covenantal.  They begin in Baptism, they are renewed and reinforced in Holy Communion, they are tutored through discipline and discernment, and they are, by their expression, witness to the reality of God’s Spirit working to bring God's reign to the world. 

When we join a church we don’t “align with an institution,” but become “members of one another” (1 Cor 12:12—in language that sounds curiously like marriage--see Ephesians 5 again).  And when the "body of Christ" lives together as a healthy body (Ephesians 4) under the "head" Christ, both individual members are strengthened and God is glorified.

In a true church, it’s not enough for me to “come away stronger”, God's witness should be seen clearer.  

Recapping A Revolutionary Response.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to limit the amount of multi-tasking that I do and try to focus more on the task at hand.  Akin to the “Long Slow Distance” training that has reshaped my body and my health the last two and half years, I am intentionally trying to go slower and longer at things, stay focused on doing less but doing it better and trusting that the process will lead to greater depth of soul and understanding.  But, if I am losing too many readers along the way with my less frequent and longer postings (pretty unbloglike, I will admit) I hope that the posts, when they come, are worth the wait. 

So, to the task at hand...

In response to George Barna’s book Revolution and his assertion that the local church is at best an “abiblical” option among many different forms of expressing one’s own personal commitment to Jesus Christ, I have been (slowly!) posting a list of the “marks of the church” in a kind of “ecclesiastical ABCs” That is, biblically speaking, what makes a church a “Church?” 

Is it enough to simply “hang out” with some saints of my choosing or does Christianity require a kind of “gatheredness” or community life that is not left to our own devising?  And Biblically-anchored qualities differentiate the church from every other “gathering” in the culture?  Is there something different about the local church besides being the Kiwanis club with better music?

The whole list, of which I have thus far only offered longer comments on the first two marks is:
Apostolic Authority
Biblical (“Berean”) Faithfulness
Covenantal Relationships
Discipline
Elimination of Social Boundaries
And… (skipping to the letter “K” here…) Kingdom Witness

I was going to hold off responding to some of the comments until the end, but some of the good questions are certainly worthy of more consideration (and I don't want to seem as if I am ignoring the small cadre of folks who actually read this blog):

• Does “apostolic authority” necessarily imply “institutional” authority?
• Does being “biblical” mean that we only practice what the Bible commands or permits OR does being “biblical” mean that we only forbid what the Bible forbids or condemns?

Now I have answers to these questions, (and many others asked in the comments) but to give those answers would be beside my point. In fact, I am unintentionally leaving these things ambiguous because I believe that “true churches” can disagree on the particulars and at the same time be in fact true churches.  Just because I am a pretty institutional, Presbyterian “Senior Pastor” of a large staff with a large budget, property, a pension and some pretty detailed agreements of doctrinal convictions and polity, doesn’t mean that I think that a small home church with none of the above (including paid clergy) are any less a church, but that what makes a church a church is a commitment to something more than a loose association of like-minded folks who for whatever time is convenient, in whatever way meets my particular needs spend time together.  And that those commitments can be expressed in quite different ways.

But, and this is my point, for a church to be a church, there needs to be submission to something more than me and my needs, aspirations and convictions (even MY “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”—an “abiblical” concept if there ever was one!).  And while I am not defining the particulars about the “marks” of a true church, I contend that part of the submission necessary is not just to “authority” and the “Bible” but to “one another” in a more formal and intentional way (see Ephesians 5:21-24 for biblical example of an "institution" that many have thought unneccessary and out of date). 

Which leads to the next “letter” in our list (for, alas, next post!) Covenantal Relationships.  (Tomorrow, I promise.)

B is for…

That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea; and when they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. These Jews were more receptive than those in Thessalonica, for they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing. (Acts 17:10-12, NRSV)

I once worked in a church that had an Adult Sunday School class called “The Bereans.”  Named after the Jewish believers, in Acts 17, they took great pride in being a class where every teacher came into the class knowing that every person was going to “examine the scriptures…to see whether these things were so.”  Like that first community that welcomed Paul and Silas and their gospel message, this group both welcomed the gospel and tested all teaching according to the Scriptures.  A mark of the church that has become the enduring measure of faithfulness to this day.

If the first characteristic of a true church is that the people are submitted to a continuity with the Apostolic tradition and a conformity to the Apostolic message, the second characteristic is that all instruction, even that which would come from an Apostle, must be examined in light of it’s conformity with the Bible.  If A is for apostolic authority, ten B is for Biblical (“Berean”) faithfulness. 

And I use the Berean moniker to indicate that it is not enough to be a people who hold on to a “statement of faith” that includes affirming the authority of the Scriptures, but that the Scriptures must be used “everyday” as the measure of all faith and practice.  For the Bible to be authoritative, it must not only be esteemed, but used.  Like a cookbook, a musical score or government constitution, the Bible is a “performative document”, a writing that is only fulfilling its purpose when it is being used and being used correctly and faithfully, producing faithfulness to God and God's mission in the world.

This is, of course, one of the markers of the Protestant Reformation.  The Reformers believed that the church had strayed from the clear teachings and authority of the Scriptures and used the Scriptures to set things aright, even inspiring a break with the monolithic and seemingly unquestioned authority of the day. 

While apostolic authority keeps continuity and insures submission to the work of the Spirit beyond one’s private and personal interpretations, Biblical faithfulness insures that all authorities must be “reformed and always reforming, according to the word of God” (to use a phrase near and dear to folks in my tradition.)

The second mark of the true church is that it must be faithful to the Bible.  Its teachings and actions must be faithful to word of God as its measure.  All personal interpretations and institutional proclamations must prove to be consistent with the Scriptures.  No matter how strong, how authoritative, how institutional or charismatic, every group, every teacher, every leader, every prophetic uttering or seemingly Spirit-led call or urge must be submitted to the Scriptures as the only ultimate authority given to us.

If it’s not Biblical, it’s not Christian.

A is for…

Continuing my discussion of "what makes a church a Church" from the last post...

In the film, “The Apostle”, Robert Duval plays “Sonny” a self-styled and self proclaimed “apostle” and preacher who feels sent by God to found a church while at the same time running from the law.  After Sonny commits a crime in a moment of passion, he flees and then re-baptizes himself in an solo ceremony that is both part being “born again (again) and re-ordained to the ministry of Jesus.  For Sonny, his self-immersion is no less legitimate than if he was sitting in the middle of Westminster Abbey, (perhaps even more so) because he is confident that he hears the call of the Spirit telling him, like Paul on the road to Damascus, that God is sending him to be an Apostle to a nearby church that is in need of a preacher. 

While most Christians (and even pastors!) I know, would take issue with Sonny’s self-ordination, they would struggle with explaining what exactly is so wrong.  Can’t the Spirit speak to and call anyone?  Do we really need a church to baptize, ordain, or otherwise set someone apart for ministry?  Isn't the "calling of the Spirit" and the affirmation of people enough?

Or is there a need for some kind of authority, some kind of passing on the mantle of ministry, some kind of continuity and communal acknowledgement of the call of God in one’s life?  How exactly does the Spirit (and the faith) get "handed down" (Jude 3)? And frankly, without ever intending to, isn’t what Sonny is doing pretty much the same as what so many who start their own ministries, plant their own churches, begin their own Bible studies are doing? 

In an early Christian text (dated between 95-150 AD), The Didache, Christian communities are given instruction for evaluating a new prophet or itinerant preacher.  First the teacher’s message must be evaluated by whether it conforms to the “apostolic message” preached and passed on by the church.  But that is not all.  If prophet stays more than two days without working, ask for money or teach falsely, then his words are to be ignored.  If on the other hand, he only depends on the hospitality of the community for a day or two, only asks for enough bread to make it to the next town, or willingly stays and works, then—if the messages prove consistent with the apostolic instruction—the prophet is to be welcomed and the community is charged with caring for his needs. (Didache 11-13)

This little snippet from a writing that was considered by some to be “almost” scripture reminds us that even in the earliest church, church leaders were evaluated—even “ordained and installed”, if you will—based on two standards. One was their character (as demonstrated in their eagerness not to “fleece the flock”), the other was the conformity of their teaching with the teaching of the apostles.  This “rule of faith” as it became known by the 2nd Century was a key marker for discerning the true faith in the time before there was consensus on the canon of the Scripture.

While today, the Scriptures are the ultimate authority for the church, (see the next post on “Biblical (Berean) faithfulness”), one of the other marks of the church from the earliest days after Pentecost is the continuity with both the message and the authority of the Apostles and the submission of future generations to authority of the first generation.  Or to put it another way: "A is for Apostolic Authority."

Perhaps the greatest model for this life of submission and deference to apostolic authority is no less than perhaps the greatest apostle, Paul.  Paul has an undeniable and life altering encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, where he is knocked, blinded off his horse.  But the voice of the Spirit commands him to seek out a Christian in a nearby town to receive back his sight and hear the prophecy of his future ministry (Acts 9).  As he struggles to change his reputation from persecutor of the church to apostle of the church, he depends on the credibility of Barnabas (Acts 9:26-31), he yields to the original apostles, is sent out to the Gentiles (Acts 13), and then repeatedly validates his ministry to the Gentiles by the affirmation of the “pillars” (Galatians 2:1-10). 

Even the first “counsel” of Acts 15 demonstrates the strong continuity and unity among all the churches through their conformity with the message of the apostles and the confirmation of the apostolic church on the new gentile-Christian communities.

For us today, there is wisdom to be re-considered here as we set about establishing for ourselves “spiritual mini-movements” that we believe are enhancing our faith in Jesus Christ and our desire to live out the Kingdom.  More and more Christians are following the road of “Self-Ordained Sonny” and not the road of submission and continuity with the established church, which at least through some thin line can be traced back to the original apostles. 

The first mark of a true church (whether it be an urban storefront, suburban ware house, tall-steepled cathedral, or home church) is that it has to demonstrate some kind of continuity in both the message and authority of the apostolic line.  I realize that for many of us this sound overly “authoritarian” or even (gasp!) “catholic”, but I believe that unless a leader or group has been “sent,” then there is no church to “found”. 

Now church history will tell us that there has always been need for reformation of the established church and as a Protestant, I can not put any “tradition” as the ultimate authority, but before I go on to “B” and “Biblical faithfulness”, I want to ask us to consider if so many of the so-called revolutionary movements of the church are little more than American entrepreneurialism co-opted for our own personal preferences. 

The church, to be the church has from the beginning been about submission to God’s authority passed through the hands and lips of others, not our own self-ordination.

ABC’s of a true church…

In his book, Revolution, Mr. Barna has written, “You see, it’s not church. It’s about the Church—that is the people who actively participate in the intentional advancement of God’s Kingdom in partnership with the Holy Spirit and other believers.” 

Mr. Barna’s description of “the Church” is so compelling to me, that I enthusiastically want to throw up my hand and indicate that I am one in this number. This describes my passion for living.  But is it enough to focus on the Church without the church?  Is fellowship or partnership with the Holy Spirit and other believers enough?

In my last post, we looked at the New Testament understanding of “church” and saw that for the earliest Christians, “church” was a very specific gathering of people out to accomplish the work of the “Church”.  Like the old song about “Love and Marriage” says, “You can’t have one without the other.” 

But, the lingering question in this series of posts is what exactly makes a church a church?  Is it just “where two or more are gathered” in Jesus’ name?  Or does it need to be affiliated, structured and institutionalized in some way?  Could a family be rightly called a church?  Or is there something beyond the family that is necessary?  Is any gathering of Christians a church? or is "church" more than "fellowship"?

In Revolution, George Barna writes about “spiritual mini-movements” or what he considers “God-centered endeavors taking place beyond the congregation (p. 54).”  And clearly indicates that he believes that these “spiritual mini-movements” are the latest manifestation of the Church today.  No congregation necessary, just lots of affiliations of Christians all working together for the good of the Kingdom in any way that is beneficial to one’s faith.  That is attractive of course, but is it biblical?  Is it even historically consistent with what past generations of Christians understood Jesus to be initiating when he told Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church…”? 

According to historian Rodney Stark, Christianity’s rapid growth in the earliest centuries was because the Church was lived out as the church.  In his book, The Rise of Christianity, he writes,

“Christianity did not grow because of miracle working in the marketplace (although there may have been much of that going on) or because Constantine said it should, or even because martyrs gave it such credibility.  It grew because Christians constituted an intense community…And the primary means of it’s growth was through the unified and motivated efforts of the growing numbers of Christian believers, who invited their friends, relatives and neighbors to share the good news.” p. 208

So what were the “marks” of that “intense community”?  What makes a church a church?  In the reformation, those reared on St. Cyprian’s maxim (“You can’t have God as father without the church as your mother”), believed that to break with the Roman church was akin to forfeiting salvation.  They responded, not by saying that Rome was irrelevant, but instead by asserting that Rome had failed to be a true church.  (This has led to some very unfortunate divisions and castigations between groups, but the point remains that not even those who broke with “The church” saw themselves as able to be “a church” very easily.)
 
So throughout the reformation, leaders sought to discern the qualities that were necessary for the church to be the Church.  One such section is in John Knox’s Scots Confession “The Marks of the True Kirk” (kirk means church) which to this day guides Presbyterians: (Chapter 18)

The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, to which must be joined the word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished. Then wherever these notes are seen and continue for any time, be the number complete or not, there, beyond any doubt, is the true kirk of Christ, who, according to his promise, is in the midst of them. This is not that universal kirk of which we have spoken before, but particular kirks, such as were in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and other places where the ministry was planted by Paul and which he himself called kirks of God.

As a Presbyterian pastor, I find this to be a pretty good list.  But as I look back at the New Testament I want to lift up some other qualities that I see present that may have simply been assumed.  So, to further discussion, I will offer what I believe to be a New Testament understanding of what makes a church a church.  I’ll give you the whole list and then linger over each of them in successive posts. In alphabetical form they are:

Apostolic Authority
Biblical (“Berean”) Faithfulness
Covenantal Relationships
Discipline
Elimination of Social Boundaries
And… (skipping to the letter “K” here…)
Kingdom Witness

So, at first glance, am I missing anything? 

Ecclesia and “Abiblical” Stuff

Every time I prepare a post on "what makes a church a church" I find myself compelled to address the good challenges posed by the comments.  So, first a bit more on first century “ecclesia” and then the biblical “marks of the church”. 

One of the most personally interesting parts of reading Mr. Barna’s book, Revolution, was glancing through the list of “Books of Interest” (p.141) at the back of the book.  Right at the top of the list is The Church Comes Home, by Robert and Julia Banks.  I know that book well.  Indeed, I know just about everything that Rob Banks has written on the church and more because he was my doctoral mentor at Fuller Theological Seminary.  Indeed, one of his last assignments after he left Fuller to return to his native Australia in the wake of Julie’s passing was to help me finish my Ph. D. dissertation in practical theology.

Rob Banks is a leader in the house church movement in Australia and was a provocative and caring mentor.  Frankly, I was a bit surprised at Rob’s graciousness and eagerness to work with me on a dissertation about spiritual formation and Christian community because at the time, I was on the staff of a 4000 member church.  But to study with a guru of houses church while working in a “tall steepled church” was invigorating to both my research and to my development as a pastor.  (Interesting bit of trivia: Last year, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian—which is the re-write of my Ph. D. dissertation under Rob Banks, was chosen as an “Award of Merit Book by Christianity Today, the book that ‘beat’ it for “book of the year" was one co-authored by Rob Banks.  A student is truly never greater than his teacher.)

While I am thrilled that Mr. Barna has read The Church Comes Home, I would like to recommend another book by Dr. Banks, his seminal work, Paul’s Idea of Community.

In this work, Dr. Banks lays out a long discussion of the Greek word, “ekklesia”, a word that was very familiar to everyone in first century Roman culture, because it had long been used to refer to the assembly of citizens in a particular place to make decisions for their common welfare.  It did not regularly refer to anything even remotely religious.  It’s not in the first instances a “Christian word” at all.  (p. 27ff)

But the early Christians took this same word to describe their most basic act of devotion and worship; they would gather.  And those gatherings would not be random meetings, but regular, deliberate and purposeful assemblies to be “the church” for a particular locale.  (The Big C Church for a specific place.)

Dr. Banks’ own words on the subject:

“In these early letters of Paul, the term ekklesia consistently refers to actual gatherings of Christians as such, or to Christians in a local area conceived or defined as a regularly assembling community.  This means that ‘church’ has a distinctly dynamic rather than static character.  It is regular occurrence rather than an ongoing reality.  The word does not describe all the Christians who live in a particular locality if they do not gather. Nor does it refer to the sum total of Christians in a region or scattered throughout the world at any particular time.  And never during this time is the term applied to the building in which Christians meet.  Whether we are considering the smaller gatherings of only some Christians in a city or the larger meetings involving the whole Christian population, it is in the home of one of the members that the ekklesia is held—for example in the upper room.” (p. 35, see also Acts 18:7-8, 20:7-8)

This understanding of first century ecclesia demonstrates that the definition of the “church” is as a specific gathered people—“a regular occurrence rather than an ongoing reality.”  Exactly the opposite of Mr. Barna’s contention, “if a person is able to live a godly life outside of the congregation-based faith, then that, too is good.”  While Dr. Banks and other home church advocates want to encourage smaller, more organic gatherings that are no less church, Mr. Barna argues that the church is the church whether anyone gathers or not.  For Mr. Barna the only ecclesia required of believers is the fellowship with whomever helps the individual to grow in Christ—thus, as I have already pointed out, relegating the gathering to nothing more than one strategy amongst many personal discipleship options.

(Interestingly, Mr. Barna’s interviews about the book have far more emphasis on “community” than does the actual book—which I applaud—but he still maintains, in my opinion, a deficient ecclesiology.)

Gathering, regularly, with a specific group of Christians was from the beginning the central activity of faith (Acts 2:42) and even the first modality of mission and witness in the world (Acts 2:43-47). 

Dr. Banks also helps us to recognize that while it may indeed, “take a church to raise a Christian” it does NOT “take a building to make a believer.”  I believe that  Mr. Barna is at least partly correct when he says that the “services, offices, programs, buildings, ceremonies” are “abiblical—that is, such an organization is not addressed in the Bible.”  (Partly in that he dismisses out of hand at least some degree of organization and structure that is present in the New Testament—like organizational structure (Acts 6) leadership requirements (1 Tim 3), worship and ministry instructions (1 Cor 11, James 5:14) and the like.)

But the issue is not whether we gather, (we must!), but in what ways, with whom and what requirements are necessary for the ekklesia to be the ekklesia.  (A subject that, bearing your patience, I will address directly next post)