I'm now going to continue the "Blog Series" Missional Church of Action. In my last entry I wrote briefly about what it means to be "missional". I'm now going to define in short, what a church is.
Church: I think the definition of “Church” is one that needs to be defined. We just assume everyone knows what a church is. The problem is, the church is being redefined in an improper way. There are Liberal churches that are trying to downgrade everything possible in order to not be offensive. Just because two guys meet in a coffee shop and say Jesus, doesn’t make that a church. It is the whole anything goes mentality. Mark Driscoll says it well in his book, confessions of a reformation rev., "One well known expert promoting this new undefined, undisciplined, and unbiblical ecclesiology was once asked how we can possibly define what a church is if his advice of not having elders, deacons, members, discipline, or doctrine was heeded. His response was simply, If it smells like a church, it is a church. My response was that sometimes a whore wears the same perfume as a wife, and it's no different with the bride of Christ.”
In defining in detail about what constitutes a church, we could write an entire book. We could go into the fact that WE are the church, that it’s not as much of a place as it is a people that are connected to Christ (this is the invisible church). Which would be correct. But there is also a visible church that is structured in a way to help build lives, reach people & worship Christ. The Bible is clear on not forsaking the assembly. We need to be apart of a local church & it’s mission.
So let me clarify the definition of a Church:
The local church is a community of regenerated (born again) believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scripture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching, teaching & worship. They observe the biblical sacraments of baptism and communion, are unified by the spirit, are disciplined for holiness and scatter to fulfill the great commission as missionaries to the world.
This is the definition of “church” that we should be defined by!
