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Dear Friends of Covenant Fellowship, As we go through another small transition in our congregational life (beginning to meet in a new facility), I think it good to touch on a few church related issues in the newsletter. Transitions provide such a good opportunity to reflect on who we are and what we’re up to. So over the next few weeks I am going to talk about various aspects of what commitment to a local fellowship means, mainly to remind each of us as to what our mission is as we continue to learn about what God calls us to be as a local fellowship. But rather than talk about Covenant Fellowship’s ministry philosophy distinctives, I am going to focus on some of the general and crucial issues of being a part of a local fellowship, whichever fellowship you may be a part of. The Bible does not command us in so many words to "join" a church. Of course the New Testament authors did not anticipate the present situation of hundreds of churches of various kinds in a given locale. The early Christian did not face the same dilemma we face. Who could have imagined the growth of Christianity to its present state, the multiplication of so many independent or denominationally connected congregations? Who could have imagined even 500 years ago the complete breakdown of the concept of parish created by overlapping denominational jurisdictions, by automobiles, etc? Who could have imagined that the Christian would have so many choices, and such freedom to exercise such choice? Who could even have imagined the Christian having the freedom (or the nerve!) to take upon himself the decision as to what Christians to associate with? But this is where we are today, for better or for worse. I wish I had a canonical letter which addressed this present situation more directly, but I do not. So what do I think, based on the principles of Scripture, that the New Testament writers might have said? What do I think God’s will is for us today in this matter? What would I offer as pastoral counsel to any believer anywhere? Well, here are a few basics. 1. Every professing Christian should be in a committed “love one another” relationship with a particular group of believers in a local assembly. 2. Every professing Christian should be shepherded by, and under the authority of, a particular group of local pastor/elders. 3. Every professing Christian should be a committed participant in the worship of a particular local fellowship, in order that they may be able in that worship to edify the body according to the gifts given to them by the Holy Spirit. 4. Every professing Christian should a committed participant in the process whereby a local assembly becomes an ever more pure and holy bride of Christ, adorned and ready for His appearing, repenting and dealing with corporate issues together (see Rev. chapters 2 and 3). 5. Every professing Christian should be committed along with other Christians in a local fellowship to the “mission” of the church in the world, since carrying out the mission of the church is primarily the duty and responsibility of the local asembly. We will look at each of these more closely as we go along. First… 1. Every professing Christian should be in a committed “love one another” relationship with a particular group of believers in a local assembly together. There are over seventy “one-another” commandments in the New Testament. We are told primarily that we are to love one another, which means that we are to accept one another, encourage one another, pray for one another, forgive one another, etc. The question naturally arises, “who is one another?” One way to define the “one another” is that they are all those Christians I prefer to love, that is, a loose knit collective of Christian friends that I like, scattered here and yon. Another way to define the “one another” is that they are simply all Christians everywhere. Another way we may possibly define the “one another” is that they are people we see and meet with in some “para-church” setting, some non-church group with whom we gather for bible study, fellowship, or specific ministry. Well, it is true that our relationships with each of our Christian friends are to be characterized by mutual love according to the one-another commandments. I have Christian friends scattered here and yon, and I certainly wish to love them properly; that is, I want my relationships with them to be characterized by Christlikeness in every way. It is also true that whenever I meet a fellow believer my desire is that my relationship with that person would be one of mutual love in Christ, and would be consistent with the commandments to love one another. And it is also true that I want to fully love my brothers in the para-church group of which I may be a part, whether this is Bible Study Fellowship, Young Life, CBMA, L’Abri, Promise Keepers, or whatever. (As we know, there is a distinction that must be made between the para-church group and biblical local assembly, the former which does not ordain elders, administer the sacraments, exercise discipline, etc. The old para-church/real-church tensions have been mostly worked through and resolved in the evangelical world, and every para-church group I know strongly urges its participants that it is not a “real” church, and that each person should be committed to a real local church). The one-another commandments given in the Scripture are almost always contextualized with respect to a local assembly or local church. They are given to believers in particular settings, particular local gathered fellowships, such as in Corinth, or Thessalonica, or in “the churches” scattered about (the “circular letters” like 1 Peter or Ephesians or Revelation were to be passed around and read by several different specific local assemblies) in a geographic region. In fact, almost all that the Bible teaches about “church” has reference to particular gathered communities. This is indeed what the “ekklesia” (or church) is, not so much a universal group (although we can speak of the church “universal”), but a gathered group, a specific assembly of God’s people. If you don’t believe me, just look this up in any Bible dictionary. As a practical matter, obedience to these “one-another” commandments requires a specific context. We are not called merely to agree with the principle or idea of mutual love within the body of Christ. We are called to an actual life of sacrificial love for real and sinful people who often are hard to love. We are called to invest our lives into the building-up of real, often recalcitrant, fellow believers. We are called to identify ourselves with people that are far less than perfect. We are called to shore up the weak, to forgive the sinful, to identify ourselves as Jesus did with real fallen people. The presence of God in Christ was incarnated in a particular place. Likewise we can only really obey the commandments in a specific setting or with particular people. Hanging around on the fringes or indefinitely remaining uncommitted to loving a specific group of real sinful people frees us from the difficulty of true Christian love and mutual encouragement. It provides an “out,” an escape from the weight of the commandments. It also keeps us from growing up into the likeness of Christ, of fulfilling God’s will that we become holy as He is holy. This is indeed a very important matter, for there is no way to grow in biblical holiness apart from growing in the real life challenge of living out these one-another commandments in a local fellowship. There is no way properly to grow in the fruit of the Spirit apart from this. It is easy to forget that producing Holy Spirit fruit involves primarily our behavior and attitude in relationship. Look over the list of the “Fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23. Look also at the “sins of the flesh” in verses 19-21 of the same chapter. Both lists also have this relational aspect. You could also read Colossians 3:1-17 to see that “putting on Christ,” and “seeking the things above” involve the development of proper one-another relationships within the body. Note that the very idea of being remade in the image of our Creator involves the truth of our speech to one another (Col. 3:8-10). Notice that the call to live out the truth of being God’s holy and beloved people (Col. 3:12ff) is manifest in mutual love in the body. We have often noted Jesus own words that the our love for one another provides a basis for non believers making judgments about the reality of our Christian profession (John 13:34-35), and the truth of Jesus being from the Father (John 17:23). God’s goal in salvation isn’t just to keep a few individuals here and there out of hell, or to have a relationship with isolated people here and there. His plan is much more comprehensive than that. He is after the renewal of His world. He has engaged Himself in history in order to call out a “people” unto Himself. Jesus died for His “people,” for His “bride.” God enters into covenant relationship with “a people,” not “people,” with a corporate entity not just individuals. He desires for this people with whom He is in covenant relationship to live out life and community together in a way that will be different, and will bear witness to the reality of His work in the world. This is the context and reason for all the one-another commandments. God does indeed have a “wonderful plan for our lives” – to turn us from being lovers of self into being lovers of others, to change us from loving those we like cause we like to, to being those who joyfully seek the good of others even though they may not be so lovely. He is wanting to develop God-like agape love in us, the kind with which He loved us, and this is no easy task! This is the main way we are to manifest His presence in our midst. Thus we cannot separate our growth in holiness, our progress in the faith, our commitment to Jesus, from the living out of these commandments. To try to do so is to be in delusion and unreality. And again, these commandments have primary reference to the local assembly. And this makes sense. They have to be in reference to real sinful people or it’s all just phony baloney, just pie-in-the-sky talk. The fact that it is so particular is what makes it so very very hard. God has started a process with us of making us different, turning us into other-oriented, selfless, pure, kind, and loving people. He has a goal of making us whole. His divine agenda for us is our sanctification. To achieve His goals in us and to carry out His agenda in the world He brings us as sinful people out of darkness into the light of His love and grace, regenerates us by the power of His indwelling Spirit, justifies and forgives us according to the work of His Son on the cross as we repent and believe, and then throws us justified but sinful believers (much more sinful than we realize, I generally think) in with others and says “love one another,” promising the presence of His Spirit for the working out in real life of these commandments. His expectation is that we as His people gathered would be different – that we wouldn’t allow the same petty divisions to exist among us, that we wouldn’t be characterized by selfishness, but by His love being present amongst us. But it might be easy to be so taken by the beauty of all the verses about love and forgiveness, that we expect to plop ourselves into some Christian community where everything is sweet and serene and lovely and no one offends anyone and all speech is upbuilding and there are no conflicts etc. But the constant commands to love, to accept, to forgive, to encourage, to rebuke, to buildup, etc., suggest that such has never been the case and never will be. Rather we are each learning to love together, and it is not easy. If it is easy we are probably not learning. In a sense, relationships in a local fellowship concentrate sin and bring out its reality, just as marriage does. This is good. I have said before and will keep saying over and over again, you cannot truly come to love me in the way love is commanded until you learn how sinful I am, and how needy I am. It is as you discover the limitations of my temperament, the temptations you can’t believe I deal with, the pride that is really there in me, the sensitivities that I have, the hurts and problems I face, and the resistance to change that I have despite my desire to change – it is as you discover all of this that you really learn to love me as Christ has loved you. Otherwise you are loving me for all of my wonderful qualities (I speak theoretically of course!), which means you are loving me because I am lovable. The test however comes when you discover what I am really like. You cannot learn to bear my burdens until you know what they are. You cannot learn to forgive me until I sin against you. You cannot learn to be patient with me until I annoy you some way. You cannot learn to rebuke me until I sin. You cannot learn properly to encourage me, according to Hebrews 3:12-14, until you know my weaknesses and temptations. You cannot really come to love me until you choose by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to love me in my unloveliness, as God has also loved you As a fellowship we are still on what I would call the downward curve of revelation about one another. Yes, we find as we go that so and so is really neat and godly in this way and that. But we also find out more and more other things, some not so wonderful things, about each other. Because we only see each other once or twice a week, and because this is in a somewhat controlled setting, the revelation process takes time – several years or so I think generally. And in a sense the reality of agape love for one another really begins after revelation comes of our real sinfulness. One reason people fear particularized commitment is that they fear being known and found out. Will people love me when they discover what I am like? Will they run away from me when I am discovered? Will they reject me? (I believe that the main reason for short pastorates in American churches, next only to the pastor’s own professional ladder climbing, is just this – a fear of self revelation. People have this unrealistic expectation of pastors and their families. They begin to get very frustrated when the pastor’s sins and quirks are made manifest. Plus, pastors, in their pride, cannot bear not be seen as inherently morally and spiritually superior, so they move around before they are discovered. Needless to say, this is a real problem.) Sometimes people fear particularized commitment out of laziness. It’s a pain to love and to deal with the problems that the commitment to love the unlovely brings. Love is hard work. Love takes effort and time. Learning to love requires personal change, and change is hard. Love also takes a certain amount of openness. It certainly involves brokenness. I speak about forgiveness as if it is a mechanical process. In truth it is hard, it involves swallowing pride, refusing to hold grudges or retaliate. Often it involves tears, many tears. Being changed by God is an inside-out process which can be gut wrenching, and I can see how one would want to avoid the process. Sometimes people avoid particularized commitment to a local body because they feel themselves to have been victims of bad church situations in the past. They are gun shy. But it becomes easy to carry a “victim” mentality indefinitely, and to rationalize non-commitment in this way. I feel for people who have been hurt by others. I am sorry that this ever happens. But avoiding commitment only in time hardens us into a mindset that we are a special case unto ourselves, and causes our growth to be arrested and stopped. Being tactfully open about past hurt and seeking encouragement and healing and progress in a new situation is needed if the experience is to be channeled in the direction of growth in holiness. Sometimes we avoid commitment to a specific local body because it limits our options and to some extent boxes us in. Yes, this is what commitment does! It limits us. This is that most painful aspect of all decisions. When we decide to commit our special love to one particular local fellowship, we are in effect deciding not to commit that special love to all the others. In practical terms this means that there are some wonderful people whom we like very much that we will just not get to see as much as we like. As painful as this might be, I would argue that it is a necessary pain, necessary for the kingdom, necessary for the developing of Spiritual fruit, and necessary for the reality of life in Christ to grow and develop. But, obviously, a local assembly, a local church, is not a utopian haven any more than marriage and family is a utopian haven. But there must be an attitude of willingness to move in the right direction once relational problems surface, which of course they will, over and over again. That is one reason we keep teaching and will keep teaching about this, so that as we hurt one another, disappoint one another, sin against one another, etc., we have the rules and the commandments to direct how, as God’s chosen people, holy and beloved, we are to deal with these issues and conflicts. I have become convinced as well that very specific and practical instruction, a box of practical tools, if you will, is needed to help Christians deal constructively with conflict that does emerge, as it will. I am no expert, and I fail in this as others do, but I am learning, and many of you are helping me learn. In the upcoming series on the Christian life I will devoting a great deal of time to this very thing. So I turn back to the original topic about church “membership.” I have the strong conviction that every Christian should be committed to a local fellowship and this for the reason that God commands us to grow in holiness through growth in loving one another in a local fellowship. We cannot step into all that God wants for our lives apart from this. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have other Christian friends spread about here and there with whom we are called into mutual love. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have other “settings” where we can also flesh out to some extent these commandments. I encourage everyone to have some solid Christian friendships outside of the local fellowship. One value of this is that such friendships can actually help us in our calling to love those in the local fellowship. But these “chosen” relationships cannot and must not replace the actual local assembly. So amongst the hundreds of “choices” that are there, each Christian should be “plugged in” and specially committed to one local fellowship in order that the reality of the love one-another commandments can come to realized in the church. I think of the Charter Hospital commercial, “If you don’t get help from Charter, get help somewhere.” This is true of the local church. Formal membership is a local church is a symbol of commitment. The reality which is symbolized is the commitment to love a particular group of sinners, warts and all. This symbol is like the wedding ring. You know, I may be fully committed to Susan in a marriage relationship and not wear a wedding ring. But if I do not wear the ring, practical issues arise. Susan may feel insecure as to why I do not bear the symbol of my commitment to love her. Or I may meet other single women who think I am not married and am perhaps “available.” Because external symbols have a kind of power to remind and admonish, the lack of wearing the symbol may actually serve to weaken my own commitment. Thus, even though I cannot prove the need for formal church membership by citing chapter and verse, I do believe that had the apostles dealt with a similar situation as exists today with all of these hundreds of local assemblies, their words would have been firm on the matter. But since I cannot prove it I can only offer counsel, as I have tried to here in this letter. So I say to everyone, be moving towards this goal of commitment to a local church. This is very important. Generally, we shouldn’t choose a church purely on the grounds of where we think we will find all the people we most want to be around, and we don’t choose to leave a church we have been attending because we have discovered that people really are sinful there. There are some good reasons to be a part of one local assembly and not another, and sometimes there are good reasons for changing our place of commitment, but everyone should be either committed somewhere or making strong movement in that direction. Usually we can know in a few visits or minimally in a few months whether a local church has an overall thrust, ministry philosophy, worship approach, doctrinal perspective, etc. that would work for us. In this sense the choice and diversity is good. But everyone should be committed in a “love one another” way to a particular local fellowship, or making it a high priority to be so committed. I hope this has served as a positive reminder of one of the reasons we are together each week as we worship and live out our Christian lives with one another. There is indeed profound purpose behind the fact that we gather on a regular basis. I will in next week’s letter go on to number 2 as I continue to lay out the importance of being in a committed relationship to a local assembly of believers. Joel |
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