John Donne the seventeenth
century preacher/poet famously wrote, “No man is an island entire of himself.”
In a culture that prizes the rights of the individual over our responsibility
to the community, Donne’s words need to be heard once more. Christians are not
immune to the individualistic spirit of the age. We can see ourselves as
consumers rather than servants. As such we are more interested in what we may
get out of church life than what we might contribute by serving the Lord among
his people. This attitude encourages a loose connection to the local church, or
perhaps no meaningful connection at all. We have forgotten that the church of
the New Testament was a connected church.
Connected to God in Christ
God unites us to Christ by his Spirit
in order to bring the believer into fellowship and communion with the Trinity.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one in divine being and glory. The three
Persons dwell within each other in loving communicative action. God’s triune
life is the model and dynamic for church life.[1]
This is the most important
connection – union with God in Christ. Individuals need to be united to Christ
and receive all the blessings of salvation in him. But on being personally united
to Christ, we also become members of his body, the church, of which Jesus is
head. Coming to him we become living stones in the temple in which God dwells
by his Spirit. The Good Shepherd calls his sheep by name and gathers them into
his flock. Apart from being connected to him we can do nothing.[2]
Connected to each other in local churches
We do not loose our personal
identity when we are united to Christ and his people, but our identity as
Christians is realised in the context of church life. Living stones find their
niche in the temple. Body parts belong in a body, sheep in a flock.
All true Christians are joined to
the invisible and universal church the moment they believe. But the Jesus has
ordained that the ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church’ should find
expression in gatherings of believers in particular localities[3]. Those
who were converted and baptised on the Day of Pentecost were added to the
church at Jerusalem[4].
By and large, the New Testament
letters are not addressed to individuals, but to churches. They were written to
be read to the gathered church[5].
Paul had a deep and abiding concern for local congregations. He wrote to
establish churches in the gospel and warn against false teaching. He wanted the
people of God to be united in their love for one another and in their witness
to the world.
The means of grace are deployed
in the context of the local church. The Word is preached and read, corporate
prayer is offered to God, hymns and psalms are sung in praise of the Lord's
name. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are administered. God has ordained all
these things to enable his people to grow in grace and equip us for his service.
With the wonders of modern technology people can stay at home and listen to
sermons on the internet rather than go to church. But to take the Lord’s
Supper, you have to meet with the gathered people of God to eat bread and drink
wine together as Jesus commanded. It is an expression of our connectedness in
the body of Christ, that “we though many are one bread and one body” (1
Corinthians 10:17). You can't download the Lord's Supper.
Connected to other local churches
With the publication of Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones[6],
fresh attention is being given to ‘the Doctor’s' call for Evangelical unity in
1966. Most tend to focus on the preacher’s controversial call for Evangelicals
to come out of the theologically mixed denominations, but the burden of his
1966 address was not ‘come out’, but ‘come together’. He wanted Evangelicals to
“stand together as churches, constantly together, working together, doing
everything together, bearing our witness together.”[7]
Many have heeded the call to separate, but have we realised Lloyd-Jones’ vision
of local church-based Evangelical unity?
Readers of this newspaper will
largely belong to fellowships that are not in Churches Together. Rightly so.
The gospel must define the extent and limits of inter-church fellowship. But
that doesn’t mean that instead we should subscribe to an isolationist Churches Not Together mentality. On biblical
grounds I believe in the independency of each local church. But I don’t think
that independency, properly understood precludes a measure of interdependency
and connectedness[8]. Read
Paul’s greeting to the church at Rome in Romans 16[9].
Many of our congregations will
belong to a Grace Baptist fellowship of churches, the FIEC, an Evangelical
Presbyterian grouping, or Affinity. That’s all well and good. But unless we
work hard at fostering links between gospel churches in our locality, belonging
to one or more of these groups will mean little more than a snazzy motif on our
church notice boards.
In West Wiltshire a number of
FIEC and Grace Baptist churches have been working together in holding open air
preaching meetings in town centres. Within our larger FIEC area we have created
three small clusters of churches to facilitate deeper fellowship between local
congregations. It is still early days, but we have already seen some
encouraging developments. We want to
stand together, pray together and work together for the advance of the gospel
in our locality.
Connected to the community
Jesus has charged each local
congregation to play its part in fulfilling the Great Commission[10]. We
cannot make disciples by keeping ourselves at a safe distance from
non-Christians. We must go to where the people are and proclaim the word of
life to them. Through literature distribution, door-to-door work, open air
witness, children’s meetings, Christianity
Explored courses and in other ways too let us endeavour to reach the lost
with the good news of Jesus.
Beyond the organised activities
of the church, every Christian is to be a witness to Christ in their daily
lives. Believers can get involved in their communities by visiting residential
homes for older folks, by becoming school governors, or simply by offering a
helping hand to those in need.
When non-Christians come along to
our meetings, let us make sure that their spiritual blindness is the only
barrier to them understanding the gospel. We have been called to be the church
in 21st century. That fact should be reflected in the Bible
translation we use, the prayers we offer, the sermons we preach and the hymns
we sing. By all means let us sing older hymns. They bear witness to the fact
that the church is not a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ fad. But we should not
neglect the best contemporary hymns that show that our God is the God of today
as well as yesterday.
Our churches must make every
effort to connect with the local community for the gospel’s sake.
Connected to the nation
The New Testament teaches that
Church and State are separate institutions with distinct roles and goals. That
is one reason why the Free Churches do not believe in a national Established
Church such as the Church of England. But that does not mean that the Church
has no connection to the nation, or has no concern for the wellbeing of
society. The church not to meddle in party politics, but part of making
disciples is teaching Christians to be good citizens[11]. Believers
like William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury and Elizabeth Fry had a powerful
impact on our national life. The clear stand of Christians on the issue of ‘Gay
Marriage’ has made some government ministers openly question whether changing
the law should be a priority.
Connected to the world
John Wesley famously said, “I
look upon all the world as my parish”. The vision of the local church is to be
wider than the neighbourhood, or even the nation. Our God-given task is to
reach all peoples for Christ[12].
No single fellowship is large enough to do that all on its own. But our
churches should have a lively, prayerful and financially generous interest in
the cause of world mission. Mission societies don’t exist to do mission for the
churches, but they enable local churches to pool their resources for the
evangelisation of the world. Concern for mission can be fostered by devoting
the midweek Prayer Meeting to prayer for the worldwide spread of the gospel on
a regular basis. Operation World is a
helpful resource for encouraging prayer for world mission. Preachers can incorporate
the intercession for the nation that is featured on the Lord’s Day into their
prayers. Let us pray, give, send and go that God’s salvation may be known among
all nations.
Only connect!
The New Testament church was a
connected church. In the words of E. M. Forster’s novel, Howards End, “Only connect! Live in fragments no longer.” How
connected are you?
* An edited version of this article appears in September's Evangelical Times.
[1] See John
17:20-22, also 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 and Ephesians 4:4-6.
[2]
Ephesians 1:22-23, 4:15-16, 1 Peter 2:4-5, Ephesians 2:19-22, John 10:11, 16,
27, John 15:1-8.
[3] 1
Corinthians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 1:1 see also Romans 1:7 and Phippians 1:1.
[4] Acts
2:41.
[5] 1
Thessalonians 5:27, Colossians 4:16.
[6] Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Edited
by Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones, IVP/Apollos, 2001.
[7] Knowing the Times, D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Banner
of Truth Trust, 1989, p. 256.
[8] The
Savoy Declaration of the Independents and the Second London Baptist Confession
of Faith reject the Presbyterian connexion-based model of church life found in
the Westminster Confession of Faith. But both documents have sections on the
communion of the saints that finds expression beyond the confines of the local
church. See Chapter 27 of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689.
[9] Also
note the close fellowship between the churches in Colosse, Laodicea and
Hierapolis, Colossians 4:12-13.
[10] Matthew
28:18-20.
[11] Jeremiah 29:7,
Matthew 5:13-16, Romans 13:1-7, 1 Timothy 2:1-4.
[12] Genesis
12:3, Isaiah 49:6, Luke 24:46-47, Revelation 7:9-10.
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