Category: Ecclesiology

Rayburn concludes his magisterial essay by speaking of the ministerial role:

It is the work of a lifetime and the whole work of a lifetime to preach the Word of God with the humanity, earnestness, accuracy, insight, and power which the great subjects of the Word and the great issues of a congregation’s everlasting salvation require. Only the man who loves to preach and lives to preach will be adequate to such a work, demanding as it does the continual cultivation and full exercise of all his powers. And that holy consecration, I have come firmly to believe, depends upon a man seeing himself to be not an elder, but always and only a minister of the Word of God.

Dr. Timothy LeCroy elaborates on this idea as he reflects on the recent Protestant-to-Rome conversions. He concludes:

The only source of truth we have is the Holy Spirit speaking through the scriptures to his people.  The only certain authority we have is the Lord Jesus Christ who rules over his church. Everything else can and will fail and err.

I was just sitting there with Pastors Schnider and Ben Rossell. We were enjoying the cool breeze and the tranquil blue waters. Our waiter came a few times to re-fill my Diet Coke with lemon (always a must), and even said he was going to get me more fries. Lunch is pleasant. Two young pastors listening to the stories of our mentor. Our waiter returned to give us our bill. Nothing like a clerical collar to get everybody’s attention. The waiter gets defensive when we invite him to a Easter Sunrise Service. “No disrespect, but I don’t do church,” he says. I work day and night. My knee hurts. I rarely see my kids, and I prefer to do good to others. That’s my heaven on earth.

Who needs the Church? This is the implication of his defensive rhetoric. All this came to even greater light after reading Kevin DeYoung’s insightful article on The Glory of Plodding. Go ahead. Read it.

He summarizes his vision for the church with these words:

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

The Church is there for the hurting. Our waiter would find some level of relief if he shared his burdens with others. He would be encouraged to cast his burdens on the Only, True God. Isolation breeds contempt. I could read it in his words. His sadness was as visible as the sun. His life breathed distaste for life. But isolation is addictive. “I can do it all my way.” But outside the Church there is no ordinary way of salvation. This is what the Church has said ever since…the beginning of time. As DeYoung observes:

The church is not an incidental part of God’s plan. Jesus didn’t invite people to join an anti-religion, anti-doctrine, anti-institutional bandwagon of love, harmony, and re-integration. He showed people how to live, to be sure. But He also called them to repent, called them to faith, called them out of the world, and called them into the church. The Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save them without adding them to the church” (John Stott).

My waiter wanted some version of an un-married Jesus; one that came and sought after a Bride, but found none. He gave up on the Church. It may have been disappointment. It may have been some form of legalism. It may have been something or another. But the point is: he gave up on her. And what were we to say to this waiter? We did what every pastor should do. We encouraged him to come and see Christ, and surround himself with Christ’s people on the Lord’s Day. We did what we are called to do. He left us, thanked us, and went away sad like the rich man. “Getting rid of my individualism is not worth it.” But we know it is more than worth it. DeYoung says it best:

If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is the hope of the world — not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.

Though I do not share the same view on church polity as my baptist brothers, this pastor acted on a fundamental truth that membership is crucial to the life of the Church and that a Church should not tolerate those who despise her presence and assembly.

John Burke’s response to Mark Driscoll’s chapter is quite good. I am not sure how these things are lived out in his own context, but they do make a lot of sense. Driscoll’s strong and dogmatic evangelical convictions may appear to be too propositional and robotic, and not leave room for the relational dimension so clearly expressed in Scriptures. My feeling is both will agree with one another, though they will differ in the applications.

Burke’s concern seems to center around the doing part of the faith. If propositions fail to be lived out in relationships, then we may be saying “Lord, Lord,” but ultimately not doing the Lord’s will” (Luke 6:46; pg. 37). Ultimately, as he puts it, “how we live reveals what we truly believe” (37).

Burke also observes that it is possible that some of the Emerging leaders are simply reacting to their fundamentalist background “that perhaps smelled more pharisaical than of the life-giving aroma of Christ” (38). This is certainly a strong possibility. When someone abandons fundamentalism, the sky is the limit. I am aware of people who have ended up in the Eastern Orthodox Church and others who have abandoned the faith altogether. Yet, Burke’s central concern seems to be with that of wrestling with the text within a community. This is certainly a noble quest as long as he is not advocating wrestling with essential doctrine as a form of  spiritual high for new converts. Whereas we need to interact gently ( I Peter 3:15) with those new to the faith, we also need to be firm with those playing around with the central doctrines of the faith.

Kevin Vanhoozer writes:

The surface success of the evangelical church masks a conspicuous lack of biblical and theological substance when it comes to reflecting critically upon the nature and function of the church. The evangelical church may be wealthy, but the quantity and quality of evangelical ecclesiology is at near poverty level.

Fellow CREC minister David Bostrom writes:

The prevailing view of the Church today is not that great. Instead of viewing the Church as God’s ordained institution for bringing the kingdom of God to the world, the Church is largely considered to be just another voluntary organization that makes its claim on our time and money. As a result, any compelling commitment to the Church is lacking.

There are a number of reasons for this situation. One has to do with the fact that the Church shares many of the failings and unmet expectations common to any group where human beings are involved. Another reason is that the idol of individualism has made its way into the Church, so that any attachment to the people of a local congregation is viewed as optional. Continue reading “Honoring the Church as Mother”