How's This for a Church Covenant?!

From Jason @ http://fide-o.blogspot.com

David Fairchild is a church planter in San Diego. His church Kaleo is a great example of a church that understands the mission of God's people in this world. Recently he preached a sermon entitled "One Anothering" and spoke of Kaleo's Community Covenant.

It is based on:
John 15:12 - Love one another
Romans 5:13 - Don't pass judgment on one another
Romans 12:5 - Be members of one another
Romans 12:10 - Honor one another
Romans 12:16 - Live in harmony with one another
Romans 14:19 - Build up one another
Romans 15:5 - Be like-minded toward one another
Romans 15:7 - Accept one another
1 Corinthians 12:25 - Care for one another
Galatians 5:13 - Serve one another in love
Galatians 5:26 - Don't provoke or envy one another
Galatians 6:2 - Bear one another's burdens
Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another
Colossians 3:13 - Bear with each other and forgive one another
1 Thessalonians 3:12 - Abound in love toward one another
1 Thessalonians 4:18 - Comfort one another
Titus 3:3 - Don't hate one another
Hebrews 3:13 - Encourage one another
Hebrews 10:24 - Stir up one another to love and good deeds
James 4:11 - Don't slander one another
James 5:9 - Don't bear grudges against one another
James 5:16 - Confess your sins to one another
1 Peter 4:9 - Offer hospitality to one another
1 Peter 5:14 - Greet one another
1 John 1:7 - Fellowship with one another
1 John 3:11 - Love one another
Ephesians 5:21- submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Consider this Church Community Covenant :

Because of Christ's great love and commitment to me, I covenant to love His bride and to show the same commitment to one another in His church.

I promise to be members of one another, to honor one another, to live in harmony with one another, to build one another up, to be like-minded toward one another, to accept one another, to care for one another, to serve one another, to bear one another's burdens, to be kind to one another, to forgive one another, to abound in love, to comfort one another, to encourage one another, to stir one another up to love and good deeds, to confess my sins to one another, to be hospitable to one another, to greet one another, to fellowship with one another, to submit to one another while not passing judgment on one another, not provoking one another, not envying one another, not to hate one another, not to slander one another, and not to bear grudges against one another.

I do all this because Christ has loved me in each of these ways and this frees my heart to love one another as Christ has loved me (John 13:34).

Of Church Organization, Part 2: Articles of Faith

by Kevin T. Bauder @ http://www.sharperiron.org

Read Part 1.

A free church is formed by the covenant of its members. The covenant expresses the purpose to be a church. It further stipulates the most basic beliefs and obligations for which the members agree to hold one another accountable.

The covenant, however, does not articulate the church’s entire system of faith. The church’s doctrine is elaborated in a supplementary document known as a confession of faith or a creed. While the covenant is typically a page or less in length, a confession may take several pages or even more.

Some have quibbled over the difference between a confession and a creed. They have argued that confessions are merely descriptive while creeds are prescriptive. In other words, creeds specify what a church’s members must believe while confessions merely articulate the consensus of what most members actually do believe.

People who distinguish creeds from confessions usually go on to insist that churches should never have creeds. What they mean is that church members must be allowed to affirm whatever they please. According to this theory, the church has no authority to expel any member on merely doctrinal grounds. To disfellowship members because of their beliefs would be violation of the priesthood and soul liberty of the believer.

It is no accident that people who dislike creeds are usually the same people who deny crucial teachings of the Christian faith. The popular motto among such folk is “No Creed but the Bible.” This slogan sounds pious, but it leads to disastrous consequences. It leaves a church completely unable to regulate its own teaching. Consistently applied, this slogan means that the church may repudiate tomorrow what it holds dear today—and, in fact, instances of such radical alteration could be multiplied.

“No Creed but the Bible” implies that when a church adopts a creed, it is somehow making the creed more authoritative than the Bible. That implication, however, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. A creed does not take the place of the Bible. Rather, it articulates what that church understands the Bible to teach. The creed is always corrigible to the Bible itself.

The distinction between a creed and a confession in reality is false. Any confession worth having must act as a doctrinal gateway. No one who denies the doctrines of the confession should be granted membership in the church (or other organization) that adopts it. Confessions of faith are meant to regulate both admission into and retention in the membership of churches.

For that reason, confessions should never include merely optional statements of position. Occasionally, a church will wish to position itself with respect to some issue while not making that position a test of fellowship. In such cases, the church should issue a position paper rather than incorporating the issue into its doctrinal statement.

Churches must decide which doctrines to articulate in their confessions. A number of churches have kept their confessions very simple, including only a bare statement of some Christian fundamentals. Other churches have become extremely specific in articulating complicated doctrinal nuances. Certainly a church should include the fundamentals in its confession, for any organization that permits the denial of the fundamentals loses its claim to be Christian. On the other hand, extreme detail is neither necessary nor wise in most cases.

The balanced approach is for each church to articulate the pivotal doctrines that define its system of faith. This system will always include more than the fundamentals. Typically, the statement of faith will express a commitment to some specific pattern of church order. It will also position the church on issues that affect mutual church life. For example, a church must make definite decisions about who it will baptize and how, about the nature of church offices, and about the flow of ecclesiastical authority under Christ. A premillennial church will have a different agenda than a postmillennial one: convinced adherents of both views might love each other, but they would find it difficult or impossible to support the same church program. Therefore, distinctively premillennial and postmillennial churches are usually healthier and accomplish more for Christ than a single body in which one or both groups are forced to surrender the full proclamation of and obedience to the truth as they understand it. Each church must make its own decisions about where to limit its message or where to limit its fellowship, because each church must do one or the other on a whole range of doctrinal and practical issues.

Confessions function as tests of fellowship, but this should never mean that the unlearned are unwelcome. Some believers have difficulty understanding many areas of the faith; all believers have difficulty understanding some. Churches must allow room for the uninstructed to grow in their understanding. They should also recognize the difference between people who are honestly wrestling with doctrines and people who have decided to deny them. No church should leave room for the settled rejection of its doctrinal standards, but it should normally grant leeway to members who are struggling to understand.

The officers of a congregation, however, are morally bound to support its doctrines. Decency leaves no room for the man who accepts a church office while secretly hoping to alter its doctrinal position. A person who cannot support a church’s confession of faith must not accept an office in that church. To do so is simply immoral. If an officer’s convictions change so that he no longer believes the church’s doctrines, then integrity requires that he should resign. A pastor or deacon is never right to subvert a church.

A church that is already questioning its doctrines or that is open to alternatives is a different matter. If a church officer has plainly declared his differences ahead of time, and the church agrees to reexamine those differences, then the man may honestly hold the office. By the same token, a church might choose to reject an officer’s resignation even though he has professed a doctrinal change. An officer who remains under those circumstances is not usually doing anything unethical.

Some churches have attempted to protect their doctrinal positions by making their confessions unalterable. Certain church constitutions even require discipline for any member who attempts to change the confession. An unchangeable confession, however, quickly ceases to be helpful. Sometimes new issues arise that require doctrinal definition. Other times, ambiguities must be corrected. Changing a church’s confession should not be too easy, but it should not be impossible, either.

If some form of covenant is essential to a church’s being, some form of confession is crucial to its identity. Churches are identified by their ideas, and the most important of those ideas must be articulated in the confession of faith. By establishing its doctrinal position, each church attracts those who agree while repelling those who disagree.

Psalm VI

John Milton (Aug. 13, 1653)

Lord in thine anger do not reprehend me
Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct;
Pity me Lord for I am much deject
Am very weak and faint; heal and amend me,
For all my bones, that even with anguish ake,
Are troubled, yea my soul is troubled sore;
And thou O Lord how long? turn Lord, restore
My soul, O save me for thy goodness sake
For in death no remembrance is of thee;
Who in the grave can celebrate thy praise?
Wearied I am with sighing out my dayes,
Nightly my Couch I make a kind of Sea;
My Bed I water with my tears; mine Eie
Through grief consumes is waxen old and dark
Ith’ mid’st of all mine enemies that mark.
Depart all ye that work iniquitie.
Depart from me, for the voice of my weeping
The Lord hath heard, the Lord hath heard my prai’r
My supplication with acceptance fair
The Lord will own, and have me in his keeping.
Mine enemies shall all be blank and dash’t
With much confusion; then grow red with shame,
They shall return in hast the way they came
And in a moment shall be quite abash’t.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees

Of Church Organization, Part 1

by Kevin T. Bauder @ http://www.sharperiron.org

The Church Covenant

The ecclesiology of the gathered church centers upon the notion of covenant. Gathered churches are also known as “free churches.” They are distinguished by the fact that their membership is voluntary. Gathered-church ecclesiology contrasts with the parish system, in which an established “community” church includes all the people within a particular geographical area. Traditionally, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed churches have operated according to the parish system. Anabaptists, Congregationalists, Baptists, and their spiritual kin have insisted upon gathered churches.

The parish system normally relies upon civil authority to enforce the requirements of church membership. In the most extreme cases (Zwingli’s Zurich, for example), the distinction between church and state dwindles to the point of imperceptibility. In the modern world, most countries have separated church from state. This has forced most parish churches to adapt in ways that make them more similar to gathered churches.

Gathered churches cannot rely upon civil authority to enforce church matters, and they would not use it if they could. On the contrary, each gathered church relies upon its covenant to distinguish it from the surrounding community. It is the covenant that sets a church apart from other institutions and makes it a church.

Not every gathering or organization of believers is a church. Mission societies, Christian camps, and Christian educational institutions may be organizations of believers, but they are not churches. They have no authority under the New Testament to perform ecclesiastic acts or to exercise church discipline.

What makes a church a church? A church is a body of believers (Baptists would add that it is a body of immersed believers.). It is a body of believers who are organized. It is a body of believers who are organized with the purpose to be a church. It is a body of believers who are organized with the purpose to be a church and whose members have united in an understanding of that purpose and its obligations.

The church covenant is the document that states the understanding of the members as to the nature and mission of the church. The covenant specifies the obligations under which the church’s members are placing themselves. Without such a covenant, no church exists. Next to the Bible itself, the covenant is the most important document that a church possesses. The covenant is what makes a body of believers into a church. The covenant is where the church’s members specify the solemn obligations that they purpose to fulfill toward the Lord, one another, and the world.

A covenant is a solemn promise. It is more than a contract, which becomes void when one party violates its terms. A covenant remains in force even if one party fails to maintain it. The covenant represents the sworn word of a church’s members.

Christians are never justified to enter into any church covenant when they do not agree to abide by the terms of that covenant. In some cases, a believer may possibly disagree whether all of the provisions are really necessary. In every case, however, the believer who enters the covenant becomes morally bound to abide by its stipulations. A believer who will not abide by those conditions must not enter the covenant.

The church covenant does not take the place of the Bible, of course. Ultimately, each church must be governed under Christ by Scripture alone. The purpose of the covenant is to specify the congregation’s understanding as to the biblical understanding of the church’s being, nature, and obligations.

Preparation for membership in every church ought to include a detailed explanation of the church’s covenant. Because of the spiritual decay of contemporary Christianity, such delineations of membership are rarely offered. In fact, many church members are only marginally aware that a covenant exists. Rarely can a church member explain the meaning of the covenant. This is a grave matter, for when the covenant is lost, the church is a church in form only but not in reality. Members received without the covenant are not properly members, and a church that exists without the covenant is not properly a church.

This is not to say that every church has always had a formal, written document that expressed its covenant. Probably no New Testament church had such a text. In every case, however, a true church exists by virtue of two details. First, the members purpose to be a church. Second, they agree in what that entails. If that is how a covenant is defined, then the New Testament churches did indeed ground themselves in a covenant.

The modern custom of formally specifying the covenant in written form has come about in reaction against the parish system. Gathered churches find it necessary to document their understanding of the covenant because other Christians sharply disagree about the nature of the church and its purpose. Thus, the covenant becomes both a banner and a barrier for a local church. On the one hand, the covenant serves as an invitation to membership for those who agree with that local church. On the other hand, it stands as a warning against membership for those whose vision of the church is not compatible with its terms.

New converts and immature believers are not expected to understand every implication of a church covenant. What they must understand is that they are placing themselves under the discipline of the entire church body and that the church will guide them (i.e., disciple them) in understanding and living by the covenant. The willingness to be discipled or disciplined is the attitude that must characterize every believer who comes under a church covenant.

Recognition of mutual accountability and submission to the discipline of the body is the irrevocable mark of the church as a covenanted body. Such a covenant is not onerous. Inasmuch as it unites those who are of like faith and practice, it is a tremendous blessing. The covenant relationship of church membership strengthens each believer who enters into it. That is one reason the typical church covenant takes the form of an oath sworn “in the presence of God, angels, and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully to enter into covenant with one another, as one body in Christ.”

Where no covenant exists, no church exists. Without a covenant, a body of believers cannot be a church. It is merely some sort of a Christian club. To form a church, believers must purpose to be a church. They must agree in what a church is and what it is for. They must make themselves accountable to one another in living up to that purpose. A church is, by definition, a covenanted body.

For Thine Own Sake, O My God

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Wearied of sinning, wearied of repentance,
Wearied of self, I turn, my God, to Thee;
To Thee, my Judge, on Whose all-righteous sentence
Hangs mine eternity:
I turn to Thee, I plead Thyself with Thee,–
Be pitiful to me.

Wearied I loathe myself, I loathe my sinning,
My stains, my festering sores, my misery:
Thou the Beginning, Thou ere my beginning
Didst see and didst foresee
Me miserable, me sinful, ruined me,–
I plead Thyself with Thee.

I plead Thyself with Thee Who art my Maker,
Regard Thy handiwork that cries to Thee;
I plead Thyself with Thee Who wast partaker
Of mine infirmity,
Love made Thee what Thou art, the love of me,–
I plead Thyself with Thee.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.