When you set out to plant churches, what exactly is it that you’re trying to plant? What must be in place in order for you to say that you’ve planted “a church” and not something else?
I suspect that most churches operate under the same philosophy of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, when pressed to define a category, said “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.” Most Christians might not be able to define what a church is, but they know it when they see it.
That sort of loose understanding actually undermines a church’s ability to effectively plant and build up other churches.
My church’s statement of faith defines a local church in this way:
[Local churches are] congregations of baptized believers covenanted together in faith and fellowship, marked by the right preaching of God’s word and right administration of the ordinances.
In essence, that summarizes the basic Reformation definition of a true church, with some Congregationalist and Baptist qualifications dabbed on. It briefly covers a lot of ground—short enough to be useful, and substantive enough to be meaningful.
But I want to make another point: what’s most useful about
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
