BLOG 7/30/19. WHEN IS A CHURCH NOT A CHURCH? ,.. AND HOW DO YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE?
I was having a conversation with a good friend a few days ago about the integrity and viability of a venerable old church institution, which conversation raised the question: How do you know if a church is a true church, or not? This is a question that has perplexed thoughtful followers of Christ since the beginning, and with many proposed solutions and manifestations. My sense is that you really can’t look at particular local church expressions and try to give them some kind of exam, but that you need to go all the way back and look at the design of God for his new creation, and then begin to search for his design and purpose for the community that incarnates that new creation—to look at his ultimate plan for particular communities of is new humanity in Christ is and how that unfolds.
On one hand, it is a temptation to look for perfection, or to be unduly critical. On the other hand, it is easy to overlook the fact that the church is a human community, and to remember that a significant part of the New Testament is written to confront the particular shortcomings, or human realities of those first century churches. And, yes, there is evidence there that a church can cease to be a church if you look at those letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor reported in chapters 2 and 3 of last book of the Bible in which a church’s lamp can be removed from the lampstand of God’s purpose for his church in the world.
From the fracturing of the original community/family in Genesis 3, you pick up that God has a vision of that day when “the seed of a woman will bruise the serpent’s head,” i.e., that God has an eschatological design to reconcile the world to himself, and to create a human community of reconciliation that would relate to himself and to each other in love, as well as to be that community that incarnated his new creation/kingdom and his will in the midst of the brokenness of this earthly scene. He would do this by calling men and women to himself through his son, and recreating them in knowledge, in new creation behavior, and in intimacy with himself in a community of disciples.
Skip down the centuries and you observe a shift of focus from a community of disciples ministering to one another in love, … to focus on a sacred place, and to a class of sacred persons (clergy) both of which subverted the church from its integrity as “the dwelling-place of God by the Holy Spirit” in a community of God’s new humanity in Christ, in which every follower is equipped to minister, and in which ever place they met was where Christ was present by his Spirit.
Such an understanding of the raison d’etre of the church is how one discerns that integrity and viability of the church. And whenever a particular church community dilutes this raison d’etre, or displaces it, or forgets it, to that degree the church reverts to a merely human community in which it becomes simply a religious expression of the chaos of this broken world. It may have a lovely social life, and inspiring meetings, … but if every participant is not passionate about the mission and message of Jesus Christ to make all things new, … to that degree it fails in its reason for being. … (to be continued).
[I would cherish getting your feedback from your own engagement with the church, and your recommendation of these blogs to friends who might benefit from them. Thanks!]
