Outgrowing the Church?

June 7, 2017 / theroadofgrace / 3 Comments

As mentioned in the previous blog(s), we are called and commanded to love the fellow members of our local church. You may now agree that God calls all Christians to join (i.e. to be committed to) a local church and that God calls you to love the family of God in your local church. However, I would like to raise the following questions: Do you really believe that you need the local members of your church? Or, do you feel as if you have “out-grown” your local church? These are not simple questions to answer, but they must be asked if we seriously want to love the members of our local church. The reality is that we all need the local church not just in an abstract way; we need the local church because we need each other.

Dealing With the Drama

Each one of us is a deeply flawed individual who lives in a fallen world and interacts with sinful individuals on a daily basis in our various vocations. Because of this, we have developed a plethora of sinful habits, along with emotional and spiritual baggage from our circumstances (before and after our conversion). When we join a local church, we are entering into a relationship with other deeply flawed individuals with a different set of sinful habits, and it is probable that some of them will probably push your pet peeves. As Ian Hamilton said recently, “Some individuals are quirky around the edges, and some individuals may be quirky at the center.” Although we are united to Christ, our sinfulness doesn’t just afflict us; it also afflicts fellow Christians. This is why many believers see parallels between marriage and church membership. The hardships we experience within both kinds of relationships are associated with our fallenness.

This is a reality that virtually all Christians encounter in every age (including the apostolic age), and yet we are called and commanded to love one another. Furthermore, the Apostle John tells us that this love is what should distinguish us from the unbelieving world (cf. John 13:35). Dear Christian, do you keep the members of your local church at arm’s length because you don’t want to deal with their issues and drama? Do you stay on the margins of church life because you hate the drama? While no one wants to deal with perpetual drama within the church, we should be honest with ourselves. In some way or fashion, we are all broken and dysfunctional people, and the truth is that we are blind to most of our dysfunctional issues! We are all a part of the drama that we hate within local churches. Furthermore, it is the height of folly to believe that you can see your full dysfunction clear enough without the assistance of your local church. Even the Apostle Paul states that he is not mature enough to “outgrow” the church. Consider his words in Romans:

First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you – that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. Romans 1:8-12

It makes perfect sense that Paul would want to visit the church in Rome and strengthen them through his spiritual gifts. However, Paul clarifies by saying that what he genuinely wants is to be “mutually encouraged by each other’s faith”. Paul is longing to visit this church so that he could be encouraged by their faith. This demonstrates that the local church was never designed to have “super-Christians” who are always giving and “normal Christians” who are always receiving. The reason why is because there is no such thing as a “super-Christian”. Even the mightiest believer will wither and die apart from God’s grace, which is often experienced through the local church.

Spiritual Gifts

Another basic reason why you need the members of your local church is because the gifts of the local church are necessary for your edification. In other words, God has distributed His gifts within the church in such a way that the members may have the same need for one another (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:25). Oftentimes, when we think of spiritual gifts, we only think of the public or “flashy” gifts, such as preaching, teaching, evangelism, musical gifts, etc. However, based on scripture, many of the spiritual gifts are much more ordinary, such as service, exhortation, giving, mercy, administration/leadership, etc (cf. Romans 12:4-8). These are the non-controversial gifts that are given to the church, and they form the backbone of many local churches. These are the gifts that Christians no longer exercise or benefit from when they choose to neglect their local church. Consider the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7

If you are united to Christ, you have received spiritual gifts for the purpose of serving to build up your local church (“the common good”). We have different gifts with different levels of ability for different objectives. However, the bottom line is that the local church needs the gifts that you bring to her, and you need the gifts of fellow members of your local church. Christians are not to be merely consumers of goods and services, but every member of a church is a distributor and laborer for the common good. Therefore, we need each other.

Why Church Membership

May 24, 2017May 27, 2017 / theroadofgrace / 1 Comment

As mentioned in the previous blog, God visits and dwells with His people in a special way within your local church. However, our anti-institutional age has convinced us that we can piece together all of what we need from the local church through 21^st century technological advances. Consider the number of ways in which technology can replace the elements of worship at any local church

If you want to sing as a form of worship to God, then you can listen to your favorite Christian artists on your phone. If you like traditional hymns and sacred music, you can listen to RefNet or Lutheran Public Radio or any number of other stations.
If you want to hear preaching, then you can click on SermonAudio.com, SermonIndex.net, or listen to any number of your favorite preachers on their ministry page.
If you want to have fellowship, you can join a local community group or join an online forum of likeminded individuals
If you want to hear pastoral prayer, you can read The Valley of Vision or read excerpts from The Book of Common Prayer
If you want to receive the sacraments, you can receive “drive-through communion” at certain locations.

If you are tech savvy enough, then you can, in essence, piece together your own liturgy. Moreover, these technological advantages give the impression that you can enjoy the benefits of church while ignoring its inevitable drama. While there are providential hindrances that may require some Christians to use these alternative resources outside the church temporarily, the reality is that much of this arise from a more sinister motive. In many cases, the “church-a-la-carte” mentality comes from a heart that rejects authority. Mark Dever has helpful words to address this mentality

It would seem that rejecting authority, as so many in our day do, is shortsighted and self-destructive. A world without authority is a world were desires have no restraints, cars have no controls, intersections have no traffic lights, games have no rules, lovers have no covenants, organizations have no purpose, homes have no parents, and people have no God. Such a world might last for a little while, but how quickly it would become pointless, then cruel, and finally tragic.

Regardless of how our culture views authority, the difference between what people call “community” and what the Scriptures calls the “church” comes down to the question of authority. In an attempt to escape this reality, many have simply walked away from the institutional local church. However, the New Testament clearly established that the governing authority of Christians belongs to the local church (cf. Matthew 16:13-20; 18:15-20; Hebrews 13:7,17; 1 Peter 5:1-5).

The local church is not just a fellowship of friends; in the local church, we are committed to another in a covenant/vow of membership. This is why participating in the life of your local church is mandatory. We are held accountable to each other through the vows that we take at membership and through the oversight of our elders. This is why gathering together with Christian friends does not provide the same level of genuine accountability as a true church. As a governing institution, the local church preaches the gospel, administers the sacraments, and exercises oversight and discipline to all of its members.

However, the cultural milieu in which we live provides Christians with a multitude of excuses for their lack of commitment to the local church. Some stay away from the local church because they are afraid of getting hurt (or being hurt again). While we must never minimize the pain that many have felt within local churches, a good dose of honesty is needed. Pain is never an excuse for disobedience to God’s Word. The local church was created for our sanctification and God’s glory, not for your convenience. Furthermore, if you are united to Christ, then He has given you spiritual gifts that are designed for the church (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Peter 4:10). Therefore, staying away from the local church means that you are burying the gifts that God has given you in the ground rather than using it for the sake of the local church (cf. Matthew 25:14-30).

Some stay away from the local church because they believe that most pastors are crooked. This is perhaps the most pervasive lie that our culture constantly promotes and it is the lie that most people believe about the church. First, we are told explicitly in Scripture that false teachers will arise (cf. Matthew 7:15-20; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; 2 Peter 2:1-3) and therefore, we are told to be discerning. More importantly, the reality is that most pastors (within our country and around the world) labor with diligence and godly integrity in relative obscurity with congregations of less than 100 people. These pastors will never receive media spotlight because they are performing the basic task of the ministry. These are men who do not come with flattering speech, nor with a pretext for greed, nor by way of deceit, but these are men who have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:3-7). Dear Christian, have you believed Satan’s lie that there are only a few good pastors doing their job?

The local church is not just a group of believers at a park; it preaches the gospel and possesses the keys of the kingdom for binding and loosing through the ordinances (cf. Matthew 16:17-19). This means that it is the task of the local church who declares who does and does not belong to kingdom. This statement grinds against our modern sensibilities, but a question must be raised: if you refuse to be part of a local church, how do you know that you’re saved? If you have walked away from the local church, then who’s inspecting the fruit of your life? Gathering a few friends at the park and “doing life together” is no substitute for the objective evidence which is biblical church membership.

The Beauty of the Local Church

May 20, 2017 / theroadofgrace / 2 Comments

When considering the role of the church in our lives, it’s always important to consider the age in which we live. As discussed in the previous blog, I believe that it is self-evident that we live in a deeply anti-authoritarian age. Outside the church, this is often observed within national politics where disrespect and irreverence towards government officials has become commonplace. Within the church, this anti-authoritarianism rears its head in our skepticism for the church. In other words, the anti-authoritarian culture outside of the church has produced an anti-institutional and anti-polity culture within the church.

There are a large number of trends which have conspired together to produce this culture. Mark Dever provides a useful list

Since the dawn of the seventeenth-century Enlightenment, the Western mind has been trained to doubt all external authorities.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, scholars in theology departments of elite European universities have assumed that the churches of the New Testament were in a state of flux, their polities were inconsistent, and they offer no normative model for today. And when biblical norms vanish, pragmatism steps into the void.

Church leaders in the twentieth century, therefore, found themselves enticed and eventually intoxicated by the methods of the booming American marketplace.

Beginning in the 1950s, the so-called neoevangelicals separated themselves from their separatist and fundamentalist parents by establishing their own seminaries, magazines, evangelism organizations, publishing houses, and other parachurch institutions.

We can also add other modern influences such as the Internet, social media, and MP3 sermons-on-demand, but the net result is that we have inherited a significant amount of historical baggage that has trained us to view the institutional church with a matter of indifference. It’s tempting to start this series by blaming crooked prosperity preachers, CEO-style megapreachers, and fundamentalism for the trends that we see, but that would be nothing more than blame shifting. It’s best to look at ourselves in the mirror first.

Lord’s Day Worship

The Lord called me to Himself about 16 years ago in an old-fashioned tent revival when I was in high-school. I was born and raised in a Pentecostal background in which my individual religious experience (which was called the “baptism of the Holy Spirit”) was prized above all others so it should not be surprising that this was the essential lens in which I viewed Christianity during my younger days. All of my spiritual disciplines were geared towards obtaining this experience, including corporate worship on the Lord’s Day. In those days, I didn’t consider myself as a member of the covenant community that gathered together to worship our Triune God; rather, I saw Lord’s Day worship as the best time to have my personal experience with Jesus.

Over the course of my young life, I’ve realized that although very few individuals would assent to the core tents of Pentecostalism, I’ve learned that many Christians have adopted this basic idea of seeking their “personal Jesus”. This has led to two polarizing and unbiblical responses to Lord’s Day worship: the first is to neglect public worship since you can “meet Jesus” at home and the second is to use public worship to “get what you need for Jesus”. The writer to the Hebrews give us a beautiful picture of what goes on in public worship.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

Dear Christian, is this how you view the church? The church is called Mount Zion because it is beloved of God, chosen by Him, and is the place of His habitation. It is within the church that His word and ordinances are administered. It is within the church where He communes with His covenant people – not in a “personal Jesus” manner. Do you see the church as “the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth”? The church is the city of the living God, which is built on Christ. As John Gill describes, the church is

… pleasantly situated by the river of God’s love, and by the still waters of Gospel ordinances; it is governed by wholesome laws, of Christ’s enacting, and is under proper officers, of his appointing; and is well guarded by watchmen, which he has set upon the walls of it; and it is endowed with many privileges, as access to God, freedom from condemnation, adoption, and a right to the heavenly inheritance.

The church is His building because He dwells, protects, and defends her. Hence, we are not just speaking about the church as an organism, but we are speaking of her as an institution.

Now, it’s important to understand what the writer to the Hebrews is specifically referring to. These words can be applied to the universal church, but his context is the local church. Yes… it is your local church that is place of His habitation; it is your local church in which we partake of ordinances and enjoy communion with Him. I must emphasize this because we have romanticized the universal church, while neglecting the local church. We have warm feelings in our heart concerning the church triumphant as seen throughout the book of Revelation, but that same raptured joy is not expressed towards our own local church today. Do you realize that your local church is the dwelling place of the Prince of Peace and is being encamped about by “myriads of angels”? When you gather with your local church, you are gathering also with “the spirits of the righteous” made perfect and at the table, you are communing with the risen Lord Jesus.

This is what actually occurs in the gathered worship of the local church, but our culturally-trained anti-institutional skepticism blinds us from seeing the glory of God’s local church. Until we love the local church and see her as she truly is, we will continue to drift away from her.

How Much Do You Need the Church?

May 17, 2017May 17, 2017 / theroadofgrace / 2 Comments

To the reader of this blog, may I ask you some questions:

Do you love the church?
Do you believe that the church is still necessary or has the church become merely a convenience in your life?
Do you believe that church attendance is a necessary component of your sanctification?
Do you prize the local church or do you treat her like other commodities that you shop for?
Do you love your leaders or do you criticize them because they aren’t your favorite preachers?
Do you believe that you can gain more spiritual nourishment at home rather than at the local church?
Do you see the church as the bride of Christ purchased by His blood or is the church here merely to fit your agenda?
Does taking holiday vacations mean that you take vacations from the church?
Do you love the members of your local church or are they a burden to you?
Is corporate worship the high point of your week or do you treat it as part of your weekly to-do list?
Do you believe that sporadic church attendance harms your growth as a Christian?
Do you believe that you need pastors and elders who keep watch over your soul?
Have you blamed the church for the problems within our modern society?
Are you a “church shopper” because you are easily offended by the members of your local church?
Have you stopped praying for your local church and your elders?
Do you need a vacation from your local church in order to find God?
Do you love corporate worship on the Lord’s Day or is the gathered worship merely a “pick-me-up” for the week?
Have you stopped financially giving to the church because pastors are “crooked”?
Do you believe that you will eventually out-grow the need for the local church?
Do you merely endure the members of your local church so that you can get what you need from God on the Lord’s Day?
What is it about the church that you love?
Are you committed to the local church and its mission or are you seeking for a better deal?
Have you dismissed these questions because you believe that you aren’t the problem?

I’ve posed these questions not to bring shame, but to raise important heart issues. There have been wonderful books written that have expounded on the doctrine of the church and its importance in the life of the Christian. However, in spite of these works, many professing Christians continue to drift away from the local church and others reject the local church itself as a valid institution. George Barna’s research testifies to these contemporary attitudes towards the organized church. He writes that evangelicals

… are less interested in attending church than in being the church … [and] we found that there is a significant distinction in the minds of many people between the local church – with a small ‘c’ – and the universal Church – with a capital ‘C’. [They] tend to be more focused on being the Church … whether they participate in a [local] church or not.

This raises the question on whether one can actually love the universal church if they have ignored the local church. Barna goes on to write:

A common misconception … is that they are disengaging from God when they leave a local church. We found that while some people leave the local church and fall away from God altogether, there is a much larger segment of Americans who are currently leaving churches precisely because they want more of God in their life but cannot get what they need from a local church. They have decided to get serious about their faith by piecing together a more robust faith experience. Instead of going to church, they have chosen to be the Church, in a way that harkens back to the Church detailed in the Book of Acts.

Barna’s opinion seems to fit the ethos of our day because we live in a deeply anti-institutional and anti-authoritarian world that honestly believes that we can “piece together a more robust faith experience” outside the church. The purpose of this blog series is to challenge our understanding and commitment to the local church. This series will not be a scholarly exposition of the doctrine of the Church (since there are many good works on this topic), but it will be a series in which we search out our motives and uncover our hidden presuppositions regarding our view of the local church. If we aren’t careful and discerning regarding the influences within the age we live in, then even confessional Christians will gradually drift away from the local church.