Connexional Christianity - living together as responsible members of Christ's body

WCF 26:2, while safeguarding title to goods, states that the saints 'are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification'. This obligation, which extends to 'all those, who in every place, call upon the name of the Lord' is modified only by providence; 'as God offereth opportunity'. So the question is what form does this 'holy fellowship' take and how does it work?


As an 'emerging' church my denomination (EPCEW) experiences occasional crises of identity linked to what Presbyterianism is and how it works. This pondering of the relation of the one to the many(local congregation to denomination) translates into questions about presbytery being a higher or wider 'court', whether finance should be centrally managed and whether presbytery should be allowed to levy denominational taxes (to mention a few). To Independent brethren (and regrettably also some Presbyterians) this all smacks of what is bad in our polity, which is a great pity because Presbyterian connexionalism takes seriously the obligation to give existential expression to the doctrine of the church as the body of Christ. For this reason it ought not to be viewed as as discussion about human systems. While there is no exact blue-print, neither is there permission to reduce polity to a complete free-for-all, make-it-up-as-you-go-along kind of thing.

I think that our problems with connexionalism originate in individualism, which is the default perspective for most of us. The individual conscience (sometimes lack of it) reigns supreme to the extent that even self-conscious presbyterians wrestle with voluntarism and sometimes despise the institutional church. In a voluntary society office and authority derive from the consent of its members (congregationalism) but in the church of Christ they come from God. Naturally Presbyterianism (or any other polity), overbearingly applied, will bring a curse, as some of us know first-hand. The temptation might be to look for an acceptable middle-way but whatever elements of pragmatism might be brought to bear, the balance must be biblical and not the individual or collective preference.

So if the presbytery agrees on a levy in order to pay for its activities, it is no objection to say that because we (as leaders) don't make such demands of our members in the local church, we should not do it as a presbytery. As a matter of fact we do and we also decide how money should be spent, which doesn't remove some element of voluntarism. However, we pay for the ministry not directly as indviduals but together as a church by means of a central fund and that is something we commit to on becoming members. Our commitment might be voluntary but its entail isn't.

Our decision to join a church or denomination therefore might be authentically voluntary but once the decision is taken, self-determination is not an option. Our voluntary action puts us into the church and so 'place[s] [us] under the administration of that power' (Bannerman, vol.1 191). Joining up means signing up - not to authoritarianism - but to common thinking, speaking and doing. If elders must manage their households in order to care for the church, the analogy should not be lost - they must also manage the church with the authority of love.

When discipleship fails and our hearts grow cold, our leaders (the elders) fail, if they do not teach, exhort, encourage, rebuke and correct us. If the Presbytery is a wider expression of the church, the same principles will apply. Membership of Christ and of one another obliges us to co-operate as far as opportunity permits, and to submit to general policies 'rules and directions for the better ordering of public worship ... and government of [the] church ...' (WCF 31.2)

Greenville Seminary

I posted Greenville Seminary because my oldest and youngest sons, now in the ministry, graduated from there and I want to say 'thank-you'. I don't think it is the 'most perfect school of Christ' ever to have existed but it is a very good one. The distinctives for which I am thankful are first, its confessional base in the Westminster standards (the Three Forms of Unity are also acknowledged). Second, I liked the encouragement of evangelical piety, personal holiness, scripture study and prayer and was especially impressed by the fact that professors and students prayed together. Third, and I suppose this covers the other two in part, the emphasis was on experimental Calvinism as opposed to a detached commitment to systematic theology. Make of it what you will, the seminary did my sons much good and gave them the kind of foundation I never had at the beginning of my ministry. To God be the glory!

A heritage from the Lord

Two of our three sons left it fairly late to marry and the middle one left it fairly late to reproduce, so we thought we would be thankful for a few grand-children, if the Lord willed. The seventh was born yesterday (quickly and without problems) and we understand that an eighth is on the way

(soon after this the Lord took him).

The seventh, a boy with three older sisters, will have Welsh names; neither Ben nor Emma speaks Welsh. It will please their grandmother no end - she learned Welsh and can converse. Like all converts she is something of a crusader for it in the family. She grieves that grandchildren born in Wales but now domiciled in the USA already have American accents - (Abraheyam!). So we have Chloe Fflur, Ffion Ruth, Anwen Grace and now Tomos John Dafydd - (subject to possible change!). We also have a Garin.

Sad to say, Welsh culture, which at one time was almost synonymous with Evangelical Christianity, is now secular and post-Christian. The language but not the way of life saved by Bishop Morgan survives without him.

But we remain thankful for another covenant child and heir of God's promises. As with the others we pray that the 'heir' might 'inherit' through faith in Christ. It is all about that wonderful biblical tension between privilege and responsibility isn't it?

Church planting - again.

The OPC website has online versions of its two main publications, New Horizons and Ordained Servant, the latter as the title indicates, is for church officers. When visiting their general Assembly in June this year, I was very impressed by the church planting activity of their home missions committee. Since the beginning of 2008 they have planted 29 causes. Equally impressive was the fact that when the church planters present were asked to stand and be recognized a very high proportion were middle-aged and in some cases 'retired' ministers. I was duly rebuked and reminded once more that retirement is not a Biblical idea.

Ross Graham, convenor of their home Missions Committee has written an article outlining six stages of church planting as a kind of follow-up to the OPC's policy document on Church Planting. It makes good Biblical sense to me so I thought I'd put the info on this blog for others to share.

On the OPC website look for Ordained Servant . The article I especially liked is How to Plant a Presbyterian Church - Ross W. Graham.

Frustration!

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?

Final victory

S. Africa 2 - Lions 1! But the Lions were not smashed in scrum and line-out or in the loose or in the backs or anywhere else in this the final rugby test at Ellis Park. One is tempted to think that justice triumphed in the end but of course that is rather silly when set beside the doctrine of Christus Victor and the vindication of the saints. It's good to be on the winning side, especially when immediate results suggest otherwise.

Encouragement & comfort!

It’s more fun to look at things from a distance to see how the Lord is working than to be in the midst of what seem to us to be the tumultuous providences of God! The Lord gives us much of the former to help us w. the latter!

This came from my friend Bill Shishko, pastor of Franklin Square Orthodox Presbyterian Church, New York. I mentioned to him the sudden providence which threatens to remove our youngest son to a pastorate in the U.S.A. We have already lost one son to a church over there, which leaves only our middle son and daughter in law, plus their children to comfort us in our old age.