Know the Ideal Church. Commit to a Real Church.
The doctrine of the Church is one of the most glorious, practical, and discussed doctrines in the New Testament. Simply looking at the metaphors the New Testament authors use to describe the Church gives you a sense of it’s importance. The Church is the “body of Christ,” the “bride” of Christ, the “household of faith,” a “holy temple in the Lord,” and much more. The ideal Church as laid out in the New Testament overcomes the gates of hell and overcomes the world through faith in Christ, the Church’s chief Shepherd.
But how do these realities guide you in choosing a particular local Church to attend? How do they give you wisdom for deciding if and when to leave a Church? After all, the glorious vision of the Church in the New Testament is not lived out in its fullness within every local body. So what should you, as a normal believer, do when you struggle to find the “ideal Church?” In this post, I want to lay out three practical steps for applying the doctrine of the Church to your life.
Know the local Church ideal as laid out in the New Testament
If you and I only knew and believed the truths about the local Church as laid out in Scripture, how many of our problems would be solved? The local Church is not merely a Sunday morning service you sit through once a week. If you want to start getting excited about the local Church and having a Biblical view of it’s importance, the first step is to study and internalize what the Bible says about the Church.
I would recommend taking a month or two to read through the book of Acts. Pay attention each time Luke mentions the Church, what it does, and how it grows. Acts 2 in particular has one of my favorite passages on the “ideal Church.”
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47, ESV emphasis added
Why do I recommend studying the New Testament Church?
You will never make the right decisions about where to go to Church, what to look for in a Church, or what to value in the Church if you don’t first understand the Church as presented in the New Testament.
Everyone can give you different opinions on where you should go to Church and what your role should be in that Church. But only in Scripture do we have the authoritative record of what God expects of local Churches and you as a Church member. So remind yourself of the glorious doctrine of the local Church as expounded in Scripture.
Commit to a local Church that partially lives up to that ideal
Once you have a biblical vision of the ideal Church, find a local Church that approximates that ideal. What do I mean by this? You will never find a local Church that perfectly exhibits all the desired traits given in the New Testament. In fact, local Churches in the New Testament time didn’t even exhibit those traits perfectly (see 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and the letters to the 7 Churches in Revelation). So when you are looking for a local Church to join, look for one where you see its members and leadership who are aware and are striving for the New Testament ideal.
Others have developed countless resources to determine whether a Church is healthy or not. But at the end of the day, all the “tests”, “marks”, or “criterion” for a healthy Church are simply ways of answering the question “is this local Church aware of and pursuing what the New Testament teaches about the Church or not?” And in the end, whatever Church you end up joining will have some strong areas and some weak areas. That is expected in a fallen world. As I said, even the first generation of local Churches had some areas of strength and other areas where they needed correction.
The key point here is to commit to a local Church that partially lives up to the New Testament ideal.
It will do you no good to memorize every passage on the local Church if you never actually formally join one.
An analogy is helpful here: you might have an idea of what you want in an ideal spouse, but if you never actually marry a real human being, your ideal will do you no good. And, as every married person discovers, the person you marry will at the best only approximate the ideal spouse you conjured up in your head. So don’t spend your whole life looking for that “perfect New Testament Church.” Commit to the best option God provides for you locally, then move on to the final step.
Work to make that local Church better reflect the ideal Church
As soon as you are a member of a local Church, you are now partially responsible for ensuring that local collection of believers obeys what Scripture teaches about the ideal Church. You, not someone else. As you stay committed to a local body over the years, you will see more and more clearly the ways in which your Church falls short of the New Testament teaching. When this inevitably happens, the temptation will be to either complain, or to leave to find a different Church.
Now, there are certainly situations where you should leave a local Church. But in modern America, most reasons people give are neither Biblical nor wise. Your default when you notice an issue in your local Church should be:
- Do not complain or sow discord
- Seek to understand the problem
- Prayerfully seek to find a way to help fix the issue
If every Church member had a selfless, serving-others-before-myself mentality, a lot of issues in local Churches would evaporate. Seek to lead in working to help your local Church better reflect the ideal Church. Take responsibility. You don’t have to be an elder or a deacon or a particularly wise or smart person to make your Church more holy and godly.
If you are a local Church member, you are part of a body. And every part of the body is sovereignly knitted together by God to serve a purpose.
In conclusion, don’t over complicate the local Church. Understand clearly from Scripture what the local Church is and should be. Then commit to a body in your local area that approximates this ideal Church. And then spend your days seeking to help that local body better reflect what the ideal Church is in Scripture. Being an average Church member is a high calling. So go and serve your local body for the glory of Christ and the edification of the saints.
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