And the two will become one. . . . I am talking about Christ and the church. —Eph. 5:31-32
Picture a thriving family expanding into a veritable living movement. That is what a church is supposed to be. God says so. Each church must be prepared to produce other churches by dividing itself as a living cell, and also by sending church planters to more distant areas.
Soon we shall delight ourselves in viewing the blessings intended for the church. But for now ours is a more sobering chore. We must survey things as they are. The church scene is disturbing.
As we start our trek together, let us make our footing sure by ridding ourselves of all doubt. The fearful stumble easily. It should never enter our minds that what God expects from his children cannot be accomplished. He expects the church to thrive. It can. Your church can become alive and fruitful for God.
Cries of confusion today are many and loud. “Let’s get better organized!” is heard on the one hand. On the other hand, many argue for less organization in the church. However, the solution to our problems does not lie in either direction. The new surge of life needed by the church will come neither through complicating the organization nor through simplifying it.
We need to ask and answer the simplest and most basic of questions: Who are we? Where are we going? How shall we get there? These must be understood clearly by leaders and members alike.
Asking the Pastors
Here are three questions I sometimes have asked pastors in unsigned surveys:
1. What is your church supposed to be doing?
2. How is this to be done—by what means?
3. How do you evaluate your progress toward your goals?
Now please remember, as you look at typical answers collected from one group of evangelical leaders, that they were instructed — even urged—to be specific and not resort to generalities about “evangelizing the lost and edifying the saints.” Here are some of the answers:
1. What is your church supposed to be doing?
• Win souls to Christ and help our town.
• Preach and teach the gospel and win others.
• Reach out to the unsaved and help the saved.
• Join in fellowship with believers.
2. How is this to be done—by what means?
• We should really love the Lord and know the Word.
• Preaching, teaching, living a life of example.
• Personal contact—visitation and getting to know people in our area.
• Reach souls for Christ, feed the believers. 3. How do you evaluate your progress toward your goals?
• Not so hot.
• [No answer given.]
• Not very well. Poor.
• Trying to have more visitation among believers and unsaved.
A kind of benumbing confusion has us in its grip. On the one side of the confusion is complacency. At the opposite extreme is a contrived effort toward charisma. But do not go sour on what God has revealed as his way of doing things. He is the one who says, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matt. 16:18).
Many have put the ax of overreaction to their traditions, but that approach in itself will not produce new life. Others are halting between options of wildfire or no fire. Ample glory and power is available to God’s people when they properly align themselves with the Head.
Looking into the streets of society to discover the latest happenings and thus be relevant is not the way either. Pitiful are the insecure saints who plead to be recognized as somewhat like everyone else. We do not need these sad peeps of “Me too!” God’s prophets, priests, and princes must do better than that! “You will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15). Notice the certainty and grandness of the church in Paul’s view. This is why all of Satan’s forces must not and may not conquer.
Our Savior is positioned among the golden lampstands in Revelation 1, indicating he is present with the churches. Then, reading in chapters 2 and 3 of the weaknesses of those assemblies, one suspects they would be cast off by people today in rash, premature judgment. It is dangerous, though, to put out a light that God is protecting.
One other text we might examine at this point is Ephesians 2:19-22: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
Even a surface study of this text will show serious divine planning in the makeup and life of the church. And this one universal church is expressed in local assemblies. The structure, fellowship, and activities of your church, then, are not matters God has left to our own choosing. These are determined by him.
However, wide and even contradictory differences exist between many church groups today. What are we to make of this?
How Do We Decide Who Is Right?
On every hand we see radical differences between churches—even among churches of the same denomination. Let me warn that this investigation can be very discouraging. First of all, we have the spectacle of many fundamentalists and evangelicals who energetically stand for the reliability and authority of God’s Word when it deals with redemption but who ignore the sections dealing with the church.
Still more puzzling is the fact that many differing churches seek to prove their unique positions from the very same Scriptures. Since the Bible does not contradict itself, these major differences must arise because the Word is not being used fairly. Here is a simple plan for looking at the New Testament that will help in deciding between differing views about the church.
There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament, and this simple diagram indicates that the first five books, which are history, are to be interpreted by the remaining twenty-two books that make up the testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts tell the story and show the various activities of our Lord and the apostles. While it is true that much basic teaching is given in the parables, sermons, and recorded experiences, it is also true that we may not safely ignore God’s own interpretations, which follow in the remainder of the New Testament. For example, it is improper for one to point to a happening in the narrative section of the New Testament and make that activity obligatory for our day. Even if Jesus is shown spending much time on the open road walking from town to town in sandals, that does not mean that each faithful minister must do the same!
When God expects us to make something in the first five books our literal, permanent model, it will be clear enough in the instructions and church practice delineated in the final twenty-two books. The Epistles are given for that very purpose of enlightenment. Here, then, are three safe standards for interpreting Scripture on this vital subject of the church:
1. Each basic essential for church life is revealed in Scripture.
2. Nothing may be made basic and essential unless it is revealed in the Scripture as being basic and essential.
3. Everything revealed as basic and essential must be treated as such with full obedience.
Two further observations need to be made. First, it is impossible to argue conclusively from the Bible’s silence on any subject. Trying to establish or condemn a teaching or practice on the basis of what Scripture does not say is quite unsound.
Second, a principle of flexibility must be employed when considering church structure. Even in Bible days the assemblies were not all exactly alike. Considerable freedom in the worship and organization was present. Yet, I take it that the three standards mentioned in connection with the diagram above were surely followed as the young churches developed. The Epistles gave them special guidance.
What, Then, Is a Church?
All who are truly Christ’s are said in Scripture to be members of his body. Thus, the Lord is the divine Head of the church, and his body is expressed on earth in the form of local assemblies. The Bible is definite enough in revealing the structure and nature of church life. It is a costly mistake to set aside this portion of God’s revelation.
Life in a local church should flow along lines that agree with biblical principles. Orders should come down from the headquarters of heaven. Church programs and goals ought not to evolve merely from circumstances or styles of the day. Scriptural principles should prevail over any contrary, even long-standing, tradition or more modern fashion and pressing circumstances.
The church, then, is a living organism joined to its divine Head, under his control. Just as the body is a vehicle for expressing one’s spirit, so the church functions on our Lord’s behalf.
Furthermore, a true body of Christ must have, and does have, capacities for growing and reproducing other bodies of believers like itself. It is indeed unfortunate if the very program and pace of schedule of a church tend to negate rather than forward God’s purposes for it.
Do We Want More, Like We Are?
A neighboring pastor once invited me to conduct evangelistic services at his church. He went on to explain, “We are small— only about 65 members.”
“How many of your members have personally led another person to the Savior?” I asked.
“That is our big problem, and that is precisely why we need you to come and lead the crusade.”
“But let us suppose that during our crusade your attendance doubled. You would then have 130 members who would tend to be like one another. What would be the significance of our effort? Are you sure you want more of what you already have?” Arrangements with me for the crusade were dropped at that point.
What is the real core problem? Whatever it is, it will obviously lie at the heart of the entire subject of this writing. Let me here present a little equation for our help:
Non-Soul-Winning Church + ? = Soul-Winning Church
What missing ingredient must a non-soul-winning church add to itself to equal a soul-winning church?
Surely evangelistic training alone is not the answer. As soon as the program pressure is removed, the people cease to function. Numbers who have earned diplomas in personal evangelism courses still do not witness.
This failure rises from a defect in spiritual nourishment. Such churches are not properly edified. Members have not been discipled into true spiritual life and are not discipling one another.
What, then, can alter a church and make it truly vital and reproducing? The answer is edification—that wholesome flow of spiritual truth from the Head to the body, as it is shared between members. How powerful this is will become much clearer as we proceed. First, however, we must peer even deeper into the darkness that is choking contemporary churches.
(The above is taken from my book, “Healing for the Church,” available for order here.)