A Message by Pastor Michael Palmer
Given to
August 2, 2009
WHAT MAKES A CHURCH A CHURCH?
WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL MARKS
OF A NEW
THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW
1. REGENERATE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
Ephesians 2:1-10; 1 John 2:19
The church is a supernatural organism. Each local church is (should be) God’s
supernatural body in that community or city or region, etc. The reformers insisted on this principle as
they moved away from the unbiblical teachings of the Catholic Church. Our Baptist forefathers died for this
principle.
Simply put, the church exists because of God’s
supernatural act of regeneration in people’s lives. It does not exist by or because of the choice
of man alone, but God’s people come together because they have been called out
by God to be on mission together with God!
A New Testament church makes it clear that church
membership is a privilege and a responsibility, not a right. Requirements and expectations for
local-church membership must be clearly defined and articulated. This involves more than raising a hand,
walking an aisle, or filling out a card.
It requires an understanding of the gospel; public confession of one’s
faith, evidenced by a clear verbal testimony and water baptism; and a pledge to
walk in the newness of life in Christ.
Churches must also be careful to avoid practicing early-adolescent
baptism that lacks a clear understanding and confession of the gospel. The large number of rebaptisms today must
give us pause. The same is true of
inflated membership rolls filled with the names of persons who now give little
or no evidence of faith.
Further, a New Testament church guards against “easy
believism” and a compromised gospel. The
gracious invitation to believe in Christ must be complemented by the call to
repent of sin. To omit repentance is to
preach only half the gospel. It is to
ignore the first public preaching of John the Baptist (see Matt. 3:1-2), Jesus
(see Matt. 4:17), and Peter (see Acts 2:38).
It is to neglect the missionary proclamation replete in the Book of
Acts, in which persons are called to turn in “repentance toward God and faith
in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21).
Maintaining the nonnegotiable of a regenerate church demands effective
evangelism and discipleship at every level of church life. (Vibrant Church, Ranier and Akin, p.
43)
I like what Ed Stetzer said in his book Sent.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the
way, we began to cheapen salvation by viewing (and presenting) it as the
process of walking an aisle and filling out a card. Can one genuinely start following Christ in
such a way? Yes. But this “procedure” is a far cry from the
way Jesus explained what happens to a person who enters the
2. THE ORDINANCES: BAPTISM AND THE LORD’S
SUPPER
Baptism is the means by which someone publicly declares
their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation and is initiated into the believing
community. (Acts 16:33; Acts 22:16; Romans
6:3; Acts 2:41)
We must see evidence of regeneration in those we
baptize. Baptism of young children must
be administered with the greatest possible care.
This ordinance looks back to Jesus’ death and looks
forward to His coming again. (Luke
22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:26)
3. CHURCH DISCIPLINE
Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 2 Corinthians
2:5-11; Galatians 6:1-4; Titus 3:9-11
4. A WORD-BASED MINISTRY
In our Baptist churches there is:
“a famine in the land
not a famine for food or thirst for water
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11)
There is a woeful lack of biblical literacy in our culture
and even in many churches. This goes
back to one’s view of the Bible . . . that ends up affecting everything and
everyone. How did our culture get in
such a mess? I believe the fault lies
with the churches, the pastors, and with moderate/ liberal theological
education.
In
an attempt to be popular and relevant, many churches have become foolish and
irrelevant. Skiing across the surface
needs of a fallen, sinful humanity, they have turned to teaching and preaching
pop-psychology sideshows and offering feel-good pit stops. They have neglected preaching and teaching
the whole counsel of God’s Word and the theology of God’s Word. Too many of our people know neither the
content nor the doctrines of Scripture.
Some pastors and teachers choose to focus on politics; others, the
emotions; still others, relationships; and the list goes on and on. If they use the Bible at all, it is usually
as a proof text out of context, with no real connection to its intended
meaning.
For those of us who profess to believe
both the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, we must return to preaching
and teaching that are biblical in content.
There must be engaging exposition in our pulpits that is dynamic in
delivery. Transformational preaching is
expositional and theological on the one hand and practicable and applicable on
the other. Such preaching models the way
people should teach the Bible. (Vibrant Church, Ranier and
Akin, pp. 48-49)
5. A BIBLICAL ECCLESIOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP AND
GOVERNANCE
The church is to operate under the leadership of Jesus
Christ. Hence the Word and the Spirit
are central to our life in following Christ.
God calls out leaders (pastors, elders) to equip and lead, and the local
church body chooses to follow those whom they sense Jesus has called to that
roll for them. (Ephesians 4:11; Hebrews
13:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13)
Congregationalism does not imply that every item before
the body needs to be known and discussed by every member of the body. Congregationalism functions best among
regenerate and Spirit-filled believers who delegate some decision making to God’s
called servant-leaders who have spiritual discernment to help the congregation
make wise decisions.
A. PASTORS OR ELDERS
(Acts 14:23, 16:4; 1 Timothy 5:17;
Titus 1:5)
The term pastor (pastor-teacher) appears in Ephesians 4:11
and suggests there is a role for what some call a “senior pastor,” but the New
Testament clearly speaks of a plurality of elders leading each church. How that is fleshed out is unique to each
church body, but certainly there should be some commonality because of the
desire to be biblical!
There are many who believe the Bible leans toward having a
teaching or preaching pastor (elder) who God has raised up to lead, equip,
teach, and serve the other elders, but who remains accountable to the rest of
the elders. And they are all accountable
to the body and, of course, to the Lord.
New Testament words for the pastor or elder:
q PRESBUTEROS = elder, wise
q DIDASKOLOS = teacher
q POIMEN = shepherd, pastor
q EPISCOPOS = bishop, one who scopes
out everything!; the servants-administrator
B.
DEACONS
– servants
Those called to assist in practical service and
administration to the body with the pastoral (elder) leadership of the church.
6. MISSIONS AND EVANGELISM (Matthew 28:19-20)
No church will be evangelistic by accident! Churches naturally do some things well with
ease because of their interest, context, and membership; but no church is
inclined to do evangelism. It must be
intentional, it must be a priority, and it must start with church leaders. Pastors are called to do the work of an
evangelist, according to 2 Timothy 4:5.
They must set the pace for the rest of the congregation. (Vibrant Church, Ranier and Akin, p.
50)
What must we do:
A. Wed evangelism to sound biblical
doctrine.
B. Train people in personal
evangelism.
C. Use a multi-faceted approach.
D. Take the gospel to ethnic groups and
people “not like us.”
E. Develop people who will go and give
for strategic short-term mission trips (and other good gospel mission
efforts, aka: Lottie Moon, Rick Via,
F. Serve (love) people in
Keep this in mind: Jesus didn’t evade the world; He
invaded the world. He is asking
no less of us. He doesn’t want us to
hide behind church doors. He wants us to
set up outposts of the kingdom right in the middle of hostile territory. We “seek first the
7. SOUND THEOLOGY (Matthew 22:37)
In years past, some churches simply did not bother
thinking much about sound theology. As
long as people felt loved and they liked the pastor and he did enough “for
them,” everybody was satisfied. The key
truths and the deeper truths of Scripture (and the implications of those truths
to our lives) were rarely, if ever, discussed.
The challenge of our lost culture and the very nature of the apostolic
teachings demands that we return to the “faith once delivered to the
saints” (Jude vs. 3). The pastor and the
elders need to be “apt to teach” – that is, well instructed in sound doctrine
so as to help guide others in understanding God’s Word so the members can
experience scriptural victory in their lives.
A true pastor is a THEOLOGIAN who is continually plumbing the depths of
Scripture so that he can lead his people to do the same.
CONCLUSION:
There are
other biblical characteristics of the local church that others might add to the
previous list:
·
A
biblical understanding of the Good News
·
A
biblical understanding of Conversion
·
A
biblical understanding of Membership
(see Nine
Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever)
Our challenge at Green
Ridge is to mature and grow and be BIBLICAL in ALL of these areas. And this all comes back to each of us
individually! Are we each going to be
personally on mission with our Lord Jesus every day? Are we going to work within GRBC to make us
more biblical, more missional, and more effective in making a genuine
difference for Christ? If we let the
Lord know that we want to represent Him—be His ambassadors to the lost
world—THEN HE WILL MOVE IN POWER IN OUR LIVES, HIS CHURCH, AND most importantly
IN THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO NEED JESUS CHRIST!
Green Ridge, guests, let’s be the church—let’s give Jesus our whole
heart and commit to be a disciplined disciple today!