A natural byproduct of the evangelical drive to focus on personal relationships with Christ is the fact that we often loose sight of the fact that we are also becoming part of a new community. Unfortunately, this has led to a lack of knowledge around what “The Church” actually is and what it means to be a part of both the universal church (all believers everywhere through all time), and the local church (a given group of believers in a particular locale at a particular place in time).
In our first blog post attempting to answer the question, “Why Gather?” we looked at the origins of what the word “church” actually means. Hopefully you were able to see the necessity of a gathered people even within that first post. In our second blog post on this topic, we then introduced the spectrum between what is commonly called “high church and low church.” Regardless of where a church falls in that spectrum, we looked at the fact that something is being communicated by the way a church gathers (or does not gather).
As I was pondering this topic and what this post would say in addition, I came across this wonderful quote that echoes what has been stated so far. It is from the wonderful mid-20th century pastor and theologian David Martin Lloyd-Jones: “Now the Church is a missionary body, and we must recapture this notion that the whole Church is a part of this witness to the Gospel and its truth and its message. It is therefore most important that people should come together and listen in companies in the realm of the Church. That has an impact in and of itself…when a man comes into a church to a body of people, he begins to get some idea of the fact that they are the people of God and that they are the modern representatives of something that has been known in every age and generation throughout the centuries. This makes an impact on him, in and of itself.” (From Preaching and Preachers, pages 52-53.)
So when we gather at Mission Fellowship, what are we communicating? Do we recognize our own individual part in communicating that message? And where do we get the backing to the traditions we do practice? Are we considered High Church or Low Church, and how does that help or hinder our witness? I hope to answer these questions in today’s post. It is a long one, so grab some coffee and your Bible and notebook and let’s dig in together…
When Mission Fellowship was planted, we came from a background of the charismatic movement, slightly “pentecostal with a seatbelt,” and very informal in our view of ecclesiology. At the same time, we had a very set liturgy that would play out in our gatherings on Sundays and in our rhythm throughout the week. In our background, Sundays were, like many non-denominational churches, made up of 3-4 songs at the beginning, a short prayer by the worship leader, dismissal of kids to kid’s church, a topical teaching by the pastor out of a verse from the upcoming Wednesday night verse-by-verse study, and general dismissal. This would be considered Low Church with a set liturgy.
But as we have grown as a church, and as we have sought to understand more about Biblical Theology and Church History, we have been blessed to find a rich diversity of tradition among Christian churches. This led us to purposefully incorporate some of those traditions into our own liturgy such as doxologies, benedictions, and responsive readings. This change in ecclesiology moved our church on the spectrum between low church and high church. When COVID-19 is not part of our everyday lives, we also have liturgical elements that we are not currently using. But just to show how the gathering itself proclaims the gospel, let me describe a few of these elements we are currently using, and how they assist in proclaiming the gospel through the gathering itself.
Mission Fellowship’s Current Liturgy
We begin our gatherings with a scripture reading that quite often comes out of the Psalms. We stand to give reverence to the Word of God and proclaim that what we are reading is the “Word of The Lord.” We ask those listening to respond with “Thanks be to God.” This initial reading and response is a call to worship that is patterned after the Lord calling His people into His presence. It reminds us that God has always called His people to Himself. He did so at Mt. Sinai, He did so at the Tabernacle, He did so through the prophets, He did so as the incarnate God, and He does so now through HIs Spirit as part of His people. Even this initial act declares that there is a people of God that is separated from the world, and we are calling anyone who is listening to join us in Christ.
We worship through song as we prepare our hearts to hear from God’s Word. This is patterned off of the Israelites as they went up to the house of the Lord and entered his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). It is a chance for us to prepare our hearts for what we are about to receive and to give adoration and praise to God. It is an act of practical obedience in response to Paul’s call to the local church: “…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart…” (Ephesians 5:19)
We then have a pastoral prayer given to God on behalf of the body. This is where the congregants can agree with the person praying as they pray in adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Throughout the biblical narrative, we find leaders, such as Moses, or even Jesus himself in John 17, praying on behalf of the people of God.
We then rejoice in the ministry of the Word together. This is not just an impartation of thoughts like you can get on any podcast or online video. This is participation in both the teaching of God’s Word, and the acceptance of God’s Word, all as an act of sanctification. This is why we are serious about this time in our service. The fact that we are all hearing it together reminds us that it is our command to love each other as we operate in the “One anothers” found all throughout the New Testament. It calls us to a common mission and holds us in common accountability as we are present with one another. It also reminds us of what God’s people have done throughout generations like in Nehemiah 8, where the book of God’s Law is read in order to draw the people into sanctification and holiness. “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” (Nehemiah 8:8) This was the idea that the Reformers hoped to recover when they made the expository preaching of God’s Word a centerpiece of the church gathering.
We take communion together to “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26). This is purposefully done within the gathering of the people, in part, to proclaim that God has not just redeemed individuals, but also that He has redeemed a people, a new nation. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) It is also intended to proclaim that there is a Kingdom of Darkness and a Kingdom of Light, and those who are in Christ are inside the Kingdom of Light, and those who are not, are outside that Kingdom. It is a convicting call to give your life over to Christ to then be part of His people.
We pray what is called a “missional prayer” that connects what we have heard from God’s Word with the request for power to go out from the gathering and proclaim The Gospel in the midst of a world that is against Christ. Any of you who have an athletic background can think of this like the hands together in the huddle before everyone says “Team” and goes back on the floor to finish the mission. One might again think of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer over the disciples in John 17 as He knew he would be finishing His mission, and wanted to equip them as they carried that mission forward.
We finish with a benediction in which we sing to one another as a blessing of God’s grace and provision as we leave the gathering and are spread throughout our local community to be God’s Kingdom Ambassadors. We sing the famous benediction straight out of scripture from Numbers 6:24-26 as God called the priestly leaders shepherding God’s people to bless them in this way. The final statement of benediction is based upon Paul’s blessing of the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 13:14.
Those of you reading with a desire to stay within God’s Word might be asking where our explicit biblical backing is for ordering our liturgy this way. The answer is that there is none. That is why God gives His people great latitude in how to gather, but at the core of it all is the fact that we do indeed gather. It is then up to each church to look to scripture, and I would argue the fullness of church history, and come up with their method of worship and order of liturgy that they believe tells the story of Jesus Christ and His Gospel.
What Liturgical Elements Are Required For A Local Church’s Sunday Gathering?
So then the question arises, “Is there anything that is required in a gathering for it to be considered a gathering of the local church?” In other words, why is a small group gathering or a gathering of the many wonderful para-church groups around us not considered a “Church.” A low church view taken to an extreme would say that any time Christians gather, that is a church. It could be 2 or 3 or 10,000. But as you move towards the High Church view, there are things that scripture states makes a Sunday Gathering of the Local Church. Now to be clear, these are not issues of salvation or primary doctrine, but they are indeed weighty matters that need to be heavily considered before being cast off. And I believe they are matters strongly backed by Scripture.
Gathering On The Lord’s Day - This may seem redundant, but contrary to groups that want to claim we should still be meeting on the Sabbath of the Jewish week, the early church made clear that the local gathering of God’s redeemed people should happen on the first day of the week. This was the day on which Jesus resurrected from the dead. By the very day that we set aside, one out of seven for gathering in worship, we are proclaiming the gospel to the surrounding world. In Acts 20:7, Paul joins with a local church to “break bread” and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ on “the first day of the week.” You will notice this is in the evening because for many of the members of that body, Sunday was a working day as servants. It seems that this practice of gathering on Sundays was put in place early in the church. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul calls the church in Corinth to collect an offering on “the first day of the week” to help the poor in the Jerusalem Church. The intimation is that this day was already a gathering day. In Revelation 1:10, John the Revelator says that he was in the Spirit “on the Lord’s Day.” Again, there seems to be a set precedent by the late first century that Sunday, the first day of the week, is indeed the day Christians gather to remember the Lord’s death and resurrection. Again, not a primary issue to the extent that churches that have a Saturday night service or meet on another day due to circumstances are in error, but one that needs to be seriously considered before being easily cast aside.
Proclamation Of The Gospel Message - Again in Acts 20:7, we see Paul speaking about Jesus until the wee hours of the morning. Acts 2:42 says that it was the practice of God’s people to take in the “apostle’s doctrine” along with the breaking of bread. 1 Corinthians 12-14, speaking on the topic of the use of gifts used within the church body, with an emphasis on those used during the Sunday gathering itself, speaks of teaching for the purpose of edifying the body. From our earliest church traditions and historical sources, we know that Old Testament scripture was discussed and expounded upon in the same tradition as the synagogues. As New Testament writings became available, they were also incorporated into the liturgy of the gathering.
Service Of One Another - We have little concrete order of liturgy specified in scripture and a cursory glance at church history will see many of the same components across church traditions, but often in varying order. What we do know from Scripture is that the use of gifts for the good of the body was incorporated into the gathering as a show of this New Humanity’s love for God and one another. Gifts such as words of knowledge, healing of the sick, the use of administrative gifts, and gifts of mercy were purposefully modeled among the gathered church. Read through 1 Corinthians 12-14 and see that Paul has relationships as a whole in mind, but also points to specific items of order within the church gathering. His famous statement that all things should be done decently and in order is at the close of 1 Corinthians 14 (verse 40). The context here is absolutely speaking about order within the gathering of the saints. The emphasis is not on which gifts are necessarily used, but more so on the fact that each person in the body is a gift to the body and the gathering is the baseline for where these gifts should be used.
Gathering Under Christ’s Authority As King - This one may shock some of you but it is one that I have seen as more and more necessary to verbalize within our anti-authority culture. Most Christian para-church groups have leadership, as do Christian non-profit organizations. So what makes a church? Throughout the gospel and the epistles, there is an undercurrent of submission to one another within the body and submission to church leaders. Think about the institution of the process of discipline leading to restoration that is outlined by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-20 and modeled in Paul’s exhortation of the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. The gathering is a practical and embodied presentation to the surrounding world that we are a group of people submitted to the Holy Spirit by way of our submission to one another. This is why Paul called the church at Ephesus to “submit to one another out fo reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). The body, acting in concert within the gathering practically displays our unity in Christ and thus, our unity under the authority of Jesus, by His Spirit.
In addition, there is the fact that we are led by the Spirit’s through our church leaders. In Titus 1, we see Paul, at the very beginning of the early church, stating that order in the church was partially put in place by having eldership. 1 Peter speaks to godly eldership in chapter 5, and Paul seeks to help Timothy’s church build appropriate leadership in 1 Timothy 3. The fact that two of Paul’s proteges are told roughly the same thing about appointing elders goes to show that this was a normative characteristic of a local church. Think about the call of the author of Hebrews in 13:17 to “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” Our individual submission to Christ, and His rule in our lives, does indeed happen at a personal level of conviction. But at the same time, it is also tangibly played out in the submission we show to one another within our local body. This is true in our submission to one another as believers, and in our submission to our church leaders as they lead well within the bounds of Scripture. All of this speaks to the fact that the church is a people who gather, in part, to make sure that they are exemplifying Christ’s authority in their lives as He exists enthroned amongst His people.
Practice Of The Sacraments Of Baptism And Communion - This final characteristic of what makes a church gathering, as opposed to any gathering of individual Christians, is probably the most historically important. From very early on in the beginnings of the church, apostolic authority was passed onto eldership within local churches, and those church leaders would administer the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. The word sacrament simply means a sacred religious tradition of symbolic significance. Depending upon what tradition of Christianity you come from, you may be acquainted with more sacraments than these two. In our Protestant view, however, we subscribe to the idea that these are the two sacraments given to us by our Lord and His Apostles. Both of these are used within scripture to point to who is Christ’s and who is not. Another way of saying this is who is in The Church and who is not. In our inclusivistic society we have a hard time with this language. Unfortunately, the gospel is clear that we are born outside the Kingdom of God due to our position in original sin, and only by the sacrificial work of Christ are we brought into the Kingdom of God.
Just as circumcision was the sign of being brought into the holy community of Israel, baptism has replaced that rite of passage in the New Covenant Church. It is the symbolic event that proclaims a desire to repent, be forgiven of sin (washed clean), and enter into the community of Christianity known as “The Church.” You can see this comparison highlighted in Colossians 2:11-13. John the Baptist used baptism as a cleansing ritual as he preached the message of repentance. Jesus took part in this ritual as a way of showing obedience to the Father and “to fulfill all righteousness.” Then, we see this quickly becoming part of what it is to be a Christian in Acts 2:38-41. Peter outlines a proper response to the gospel as repenting and being baptized into the community of believers. From that point on in scripture, we see whole households being baptized into the community of the saints. Ephesians 4:5 shows us the weight given to this sacrament when Paul says that we share in “one baptism.”
Now you might rightly state that there is still debate on this topic between paedobaptists and credobaptists. There is great detail to this debate, but in general, Paedobaptists believe that because baptism replaced circumcision it should be administered to babies. This is found more often in the High Church traditions. Credobaptists believe that, like the New Testament shows in Acts, one must have a conscious and acknowledged faith in Christ before one should be baptized. This is found as you move midway on the spectrum towards Low Church ecclesiology. The lowest church ecclesiology has largely abandoned baptism and replaced it with altar calls for people to pray the “sinner’s prayer.”
There are many other debates we could bring up here. But for the sake of time, what I want us to consider is that since the earliest days in Christianity, baptism was to be done in the midst of the community to which one was committing themselves. Most often, it would be administered by the leadership of the body, in the presence of their witness, as a way of saying, “This is the group of people to whom I am committing myself in order to participate in the embodied local church.” As time has gone on, however, and Low Church ecclesiology has become more popular, baptism has largely become something one does secondary to a “sinner’s prayer,” as we already noted. It has been often removed out of the community of the saints, and it has become something to do based on emotion of the moment rather than a thought through recognition of taking on the cost of discipleship (See Luke 14:25-33). Many use the example of the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 as the model for baptism. But recognize that this was during the transition period between the Old Covenant people of Israel and the New Covenant people of the Gentile Nations. There was no local church for the Ethiopian to be baptized into, and so Philip baptized him as a way of commissioning him to be sent with the gospel to His homeland. The normative view of baptism from that point, given what we know in scripture and from church history, is that whenever possible, baptism was to be observed in the community of the saints.
Baptism and communion were then tightly linked. Communion was to be something in which only the faithful (Those initiated into the community through baptism) took part. Those who were involved in the process of church discipline or those who were not part of the faithful local body would not receive communion. This is not explicitly stated in scripture because it is just assumed. For example, look at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church. Read through 1 Corinthians 11 and notice that it is speaking of brothers (and sisters) in Christ coming together to participate in the Lord’s Table. He even says that those who take part and don’t think properly of “the body” and the care that should be shown for one another within this community eat and drink “in an unworthy manner.” He then goes on to explicitly state in 1 Corinthians 14:23 that at times “outsiders or unbelievers” will come into the gathering of “the whole church.” This identification of those inside the faith and those outside was, in part, explicitly stated by who takes, or doesn’t take, communion. As Low Church ecclesiology has become more popular in the church at large, membership within a church, baptism, and communion have largely been broken apart, or worse, done away with to a great degree. In this, churches who have succumbed to this low view of ecclesiology have lessened their ability to proclaim The Gospel and how it has accomplished the gathering together of the nations in Christ.
What Does Mission Fellowship Teach?
Given all this background, you might already have guessed that Mission falls somewhere in the middle of the Low Church and High Church spectrum, while also trying to avoid the “Worship Wars” often found in Protestantism. “Worship Wars” are where churches compare their styles of worship and gathering to find out whose is “right.” As we have noted, there are many variations to liturgy and gathering that have been very much part of the true church since the beginning. Some of which, like holy kisses, ritual foot washing, laying on of hands, etc. we don’t practice at Mission Fellowship for various reasons. For example, none of these, or many other examples, were stated clearly by scripture as imperatives that needed to continue. And so, every church has liberty in how they structure their gatherings.
At the same time, what has been consistent across all generations of the church is that the core expression of the gospel and the fact that we have been gathered from the nations to be in Christ is that we gather. We are then scattered as a missionary people into our communities, places of work, and so on. There are so many more things that make up our Christianity at Mission Fellowship, but the core is that we gather on the Lord’s Day, in proclamation of The Gospel, showing service and love for one another in our participation, in submission to one another out of love for Christ, and practicing the sacraments of baptism and communion as the church has done since Acts 2. From this baseline, we then have freedom to adjust our liturgical order and liturgical items to fit the environment and circumstances, as we have done to meet our governing leader’s requests within the COVID-19 guidelines. We do so with a high reverence for the importance of the gathering of believers. But we also respect the grace and freedom God has given all of the local churches that make up His Church to order their gatherings in the way they see fits biblical wisdom and practical concern.
I hope this post has provided some tools for consideration as you ponder whether or not to gather with us during this time. For the majority of us, the responsibility is on us to provide a solid reason why we should not gather with our local church. Hopefully it is obvious to you that while livestream is a helpful ministry to those that are homebound, it is not a viable replacement for the gathering of God’s people. But the question still remains for many who exist within vulnerable populations, “Is gathering worth the risk to my physical health? Especially knowing that over 300,000 people have died by the date of this writing, in this country, from exposure to COVID-19?” The next post will speak directly to this topic of risk and hopefully provide some questions that can be considered so that each of us can be fully assured of our obedience to Christ in our own minds and hearts. You are all heavy on my heart and present in my prayers that God would give you wisdom as you consider this weighty topic.