Defining the Church

For where two or three are gathered in my name, 

there am I among them. 

(Matt. 18:20)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

The church is not easily defined. The Apostle Paul’s term ecclesia (ἐκκλησίᾳ; 1 Cor 1:2) remains helpful because it describes an organic institution the called out ones defined primarily by its call.

Being defined by its call (or mission), not by its institutional structure, means that the church’s origins lie in the one calling it out.  On Pentecost when the church was born, the defining characteristic of those called was the tongues of fire (Acts 2:3) that rested on their head. At seminary we used to describe those truly tuned into their work as having “their hair on fire for the Lord,” an obvious allusion to Pentecost experience.

The Old Testament description of a church, kahal (קָהַל, BDB 8447), means assembly, convocation, congregation. In Deuteronomy, we read: Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words (Deut 4:10). The context here offers a purpose—hear my words—and a particular time suggesting the ecclesia is even here not a random group or group defined by a particular place as in a temple. This purpose highlights the role of worship in the church.

While this is obviously not a comprehensive review of the Old Testament-New Testament contrast in view of the church, it highlights the contrast between the footloose and embodied interpretations of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church.

The Question of Mission

As a practical matter, church leaders often struggle to articulate their corporate mission, especially as they approach the calling of pastors. The usual strategy is to plan a leadership retreat and brainstorm a mission statement that ends up plastered on business cards, stationary, and miscellaneous swag. The problem with the MBA approach to discerning a church call is it focuses on group process rather than observing movement of the spirit within the life of the church.

In my work as a hospital chaplain I met a troubled woman—a paraplegic—in the emergency department. When I asked her about scripture or perhaps a Bible story that she enjoyed, she talked about the story of Joseph, whose brothers threw him in a pit and later sold him as a slave (Gen 37). As a paraplegic, this woman had been abused by her family even as they lived off of her government transfer payments. This woman’s life story was a direct analogy to the story of Joseph, which for her was a rehearsal story, a story from the past with current significance (Savage 1996, 84-89).

The story of the paraplegic highlights one method for discerning God’s call on a particular church. What passage of scripture best describes significant work or events in the life of the church? A campus church might mirror the mentoring work, for example, of Barnabas who encouraged the Apostle Paul (Acts 4:36; 9:27). An inner-city church might relate to the story of the woman at the well (John 4). A house church in China might find the story of Abigail who saved her foolish husband’s life by offering hospitality to David (1 Samuel 25). Understanding a parallel biblical story can suggest additional elements that would be helpful in the current context.

Because churches often combine a collection of ministries, each of the ministries may have its own unique calling much like a vegetable stand in a farmer’s market. The call of the wider church may lie in helping these ministries define their mission and resourcing their work.

Signs of the Times

Two historical trends in the church more widely have come together in recent years to complicate arriving at a proper definition of the church (and a proper sense of Christian identity) in the U.S. context. The first has to do with the separation of church and state. The second is the demise of Christendom.

Separation of church and state became a political reality in the Protestant Reformation. After Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517, the Protestant Reformation spun off a number of Protestant denominations that in the American context competed for members, authority, and influence. Bradley Longfield (2013, 95) writes that in “The 1830s the Presbyterian General Assembly rivaled the federal government for popular influence and esteem.” What was political expedient in the nineteenth century, is today no longer relevant with major moral issues like abortion, divorce, and homosexuality now decided through legislation and court decisions, not biblical warrant. The separation of church and state that allowed for freedom of religious affiliation—no official church—now effectively mandates a state religion without a church.

Christendom arose in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine (272-337 AD) adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (after 313 AD). When Christianity became an official religion, many new converts came into the church for reasons not necessarily related to faith. The need to define what it meant to be a Christian thus became a high priority. The Nicene Creed (325-381 AD), Apostle Creed (340 AD), and the Bible itself (367 AD) all date from this period. The demise of Christendom as an informal institution in this generation has reignited the identity question that had previously been a settled issue for roughly fifteen hundred years.

While some argue that Christendom’s demise was a long overdue, its absence reverberates throughout the church and complicates any attempt to define the church and its mission in this time and place. Likewise, the collapse of the separation of church and state means that the three signs of the true church (right preaching, right administration of sacraments, and church discipline) can no longer be assured (PCUSA 1999, 3.18) because of boundary-management incongruities. While the cause of these changes can certainly be argued, the existence of these changes is not really subject to question.

Return to a Biblical Church

While there is no one biblical institution called the church, the primary example of a church in the New Testament is the house church served by bivocational clergy. The New Testament gives no examples of professional clergy. The Apostle Paul worked as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3), which served as an interesting double-entendre. Paul made tents during the day and worked at night as an evangelist building the tabernacle (tent) of God. Would that we could do the same.

References

Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius (BDB). 1905. Hebrew-English Lexicon, unabridged.

Longfield, Bradley J. 2013. Presbyterians and American Culture: A History.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press.

Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PC USA). 1999. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—Part I: Book of Confession. Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly.

Savage, John. 1996. Listening and Caring Skills: A Guide for Groups and Leaders. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Defining the Church

Also see:

The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com




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