Evangelical Untouchables 4
Here is my latest installment for the Internet Monk’s Evangelical Untouchables series…the main article can be found here.
The Question -
Many evangelicals are abandoning the practice of formal church membership. What is your feeling about the practice of formally joining the local church? How do you relate your church’s practice to the mission of the church?
My Answer -
The only church I’ve ever been a part of that practiced formal membership was the Conservative Baptist Church, where I came to Christ as a teenager.
Calvary Chapel as a whole does not embrace the practice of church membership. I think there may be a few Calvary Chapels that have instituted the practice but by in large it’s not part of our tradition or ecclesiology.
For our church locally I think we have always seen church membership as something that happens on a spiritual level, we are baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12:12ff) and any effort to duplicate that falls short of the intended goal. Obviously church membership does not equate salvation, so the motivation generally falls under the category of discipleship. For which I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever. If the leadership of a local church believes that they can best fulfill the Great Commission by practicing formal membership then they would be sinful not to do it. Transversely if a church institutes or perpetuates membership so that they can obligate people to attend, serve, and give more faithfully I think they are traveling down a slippery slope.
I want people to identify with Jesus first and foremost. We are in fact Christians, which means that our identity should never be with “Calvary Chapel” or any other denomination. That being said the absence of formal membership does not insulate a church from this isolationist paradigm. My movement has been very guilty of turning its nose up at other Christian groups and that is a shame. Therefore in light of this desire to simply identify with Jesus and no man or group we have chosen not to adopt the practice of formal membership, and it hasn’t been a hindrance any in of the above areas of concern.
However in light of the Bible’s ambiguity regarding the subject I believe that each individual church needs to hear from God as to what practice will help them best achieve the mission of the local church.
Our mission at Calvary Chapel in Prineville, OR has been to make disciples of Jesus; to inform people that the kingdom of God has come near (Luke 10:11) and to allow the Holy Spirit to revolutionize lives with the power of the gospel. In keeping with that mission we want to bring broken people to His kingdom, which is far bigger than what we’re doing here. We are dedicated to pointing sinners to Jesus and allowing Him to covenant with them individually from which will flow a spontaneous response of faithfulness in the local church.
Here is an article that is related to the subject.
Evangelical Untouchables 3
Check out the latest installment of the Evangelical Untouchables over at Imonk.
Here is the question for this post -
“Evangelicals love to convert and baptize other people’s church members.
Recently, I received word that one of the elders of a church where I served as supply pastor for many years had been baptized and proclaimed himself a new Christian. This was a man I discipled, prayed with, ministered with and was constantly encouraged by in my own ministry. While I’m not God, all my understanding of the evidence of true faith says he was a Christian. Now he’s been told by his new church that all those years- including years serving as an elder- were spent as an unconverted person.
Sometimes this happens with a stress on questioning assurance. Sometimes it comes because of the claims of the church involved.
How do you process, in your own understanding of conversion, grace and baptism, the “conversion” of your own church members into “new converts” at other churches? Would you tell a person who considered themselves a Christian that they weren’t, and needed to be rebaptized?”
Evangelical Untouchables 2: Seeker Sensitivity
I have been doing some writing for the Internet Monk, a very well read Christian blog ran by Michael Spencer. The series of articles that I was asked to write for is called the “Evangelical Untouchables.” It’s basically a group of pastors from a cross section of Christianity that are answering a common question posed by Michael 3 or 4 days ahead of time. He then posts the answers on his blog and you can read 6 or 7 different guys giving their responses to a question that is relevant to modern Church life.
The second of this series of questions was…
“How has the “seeker” emphasis affected your perception of your congregation’s worship services? Are there changes you have made to accommodate and bring back seekers? Are there changes you would never consider, even if it would put more non-Christians in your service?”.
Check out the answers and the subsequent readers comments here.
Also Mark Driscoll blogs about Easter preaching here.
Evangelical Untouchables
Michael Spencer who blogs at Internet Monk is going to write a series of articles about the Evangelical Church and I am going to be writing from the Calvary Chapel perspective. His desire is to give people a glimspe of what is going on in different corners of the Church by allowing pastors from different flavors of Christianity to describe what they and their churches are doing to further the Kingdom and spread the gospel.