The Kind of Church for Which I’m Praying, Believing, and Living-Part 3
For what kind of church are you praying, believing, and living?
These days, I am praying and believing that the church will become more faithfully the church that God is calling it to be. That will mean many things:
1. It will mean recovering or re-emphasizing the urgency of biblical theology and sound doctrine.
Even as I type those words, I can hear some of you asking “What do you mean by ‘biblical theology and sound doctrine?’” It is not my intention in this post to establish the theological and doctrinal boundaries in that regard. After all, the Articles of Religion have already accomplished that in good fashion.
I do, however, want to make the point that, for the church, theology and doctrine are not expendable lambs to be slaughtered at the altar of pluralism. Quite the contrary, they are the time-tested disciplines through which the church has determined both the content of its proclamation and the nature of its practice.
Is there room for differing theological and doctrinal opinions in the church’s ministry? Certainly. The shadow of the cross covers a good bit of ground in that regard. Therefore, I am not calling for a cold theological rigidity that truncates exploration, or a doctrinal myopia that prevents us from thinking deeply about the history and implications of our doctrines. I am simply calling the church to recognize that, in kerygmatic matters, it is the steward of an existing story and not the crafter of a new one.
To be a faithful steward of the story that has been entrusted to it, the church has no choice but to be a community that takes its theology and doctrine very seriously.
2. Becoming more faithfully the church will also require the church’s people to begin to recognize afresh that tearing one another down is antithetical to the spirit of agapic love in which we are called to live. To be certain, followers of Christ are called to hold one another accountable. But accountability is for the edification of both the individual and the community, not for the creation of rancor and alienation.
Put simply, the church stops acting like the church if its people become comfortable with disparaging one another, especially when the ones disparaged are not present to defend themselves. We are called to be a different kind of church than that.
3. Becoming more faithfully the church will mean that the church’s people embrace ever more deeply the truth that starting new churches and new communities of faith is not simply a passing fad but an urgent necessity. If the church is to reach new people, then it must become the church in new ways, in new places, through new ministries and new communities of faith. If churches could become more entrepreneurial than provincial, more missional than protective, then forming new churches and new communities of faith might become a joyful way of life for us instead of an occasional impulse.
That is the kind of church for which I am living and praying these days—a community of sound theology and doctrine that is stubbornly resistant to disparagement and passionately devoted to being the church in new places and in new ways.