The question about fencing the communion table came up recently and led to a wider discussion about authority and accountability in the church. I'm not a from-the-top-down Presbyterian and prefer to think of the so called courts of the church as wider rather than higher but still worry about democratizing church leadership on the one hand, and a kind of seeker-sensitivity influencing what and how we act, on the other.
For example, what do we expect from those who sojourn with us for a long time without ever formally committing to membership - sort of cohabiting without marriage? And what about the many members and non-members of local churches who go about preaching? Who gave them permission to go and to whom are they accountable? Why worry about training ministers when all sorts of people appoint themselves?
I agree that the church is in such a parlous state that some congregations would have no preacher at all were it not for lay preachers. I also agree that we should be patient and sensitive and give people time to come to terms with the kind of church we happen to be (right or wrong). I just worry that anxiety about what people think tends to stop us being the church we are so that we end up wondering whose tune we are dancing to. Once, when discussing the form and content of some incarnation services a young woman chided us for not including songs that would appeal to outsiders. None of us knew the songs in question, and more to the point, neither would the average outsider, but they would have been more familiar with the traditional ones.anyway and I'm sure the outsiders didn't either but probably knew the traditional ones.
It is general practice to play down the importance of church membership and to allow people to do what the want, provided they think God told them to do it,so is the quest for identity, authority and accountability now redundant? Or can we continue to be what we are or ought to be in order that those who sojourn with us will know whom they are sojourning with? It cannot preclude patience and sensitivity and certainly doesn't argue for pressuring people to join up. Actually it isn't about them but us. I'm just asking whether we can be ourselves so that we may be honest about it and others might know that we are being honest.
I sometimes feel as if these are the concerns of dinosaurs (among whom I have been occasionally numbered) but I don't have the impression that our Lord Jesus Christ was relaxed about authority and accountability and I am certain the apostle Paul wasn't. I know that those not against us are for us and rejoice that the gospel is preached for whatever reason but as churches, doing it honestly and in the right way ought to count for something don't you think?
2 comments:
There is a failure of pastoral responsibility when adherents attend for years, possibly taking the Lord's Supper, and not becoming members. Surely the elders should ask these people what holds them back from becoming members, ready then to deal with the pastoral questions that arise. Some may never have thought of it, some may have issues that they are grateful to have broached, many may well be believers lacking the forwardness or experience they wrongly think is necessary for membership. Others may need to understand that authority is a biblical concept.
After all, if the table isn't fenced, how can the mark of church discipline exist?
Thank you brother Foxe. I was more concerned with the issue of accountability in ministry as it had been prompted by the communion question, but I think we sing from the same sheet on that, though dealing with long-standing precedents is not always easy.
By the way, I visited the library of St. John's college Cambridge yesterday and saw some very original Foxe's Martyrs and Acts & Monuments. Also saw the Great bible of 1539 and (exciting for a Welshman) William Morgan's tranlsation of the Bible into Welsh (1588) to which is attributed the saving of the Welsh Language and the saving of many lost Welshmen.
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