What is a Church? Some thoughts on what should define and characterize any local church.
Contents
A Church is a Called out Group
The Greek word for church is ekklesia, or ones called out of (from) their homes. The word has a sense of coming together leaving your normal lives at one side while you do something extra ordinary. The word had use outside of Scripture of a town meeting, when some leaders in the town called the town’s people into an assembly to deal with an emergency situation. In one occasion the town’s people were called together because the town’s activity was quickly becoming a thing that the Roman government would answer with a military response that would cause the death of everybody in the town.
God uses this word for churches. It is God’s purpose that churches answer the crises of our day. In our day, the government has all but taken over any crisis response. That is a shame to the Christians.
A Church is a Group of the Redeemed
To be a part of a church, one needs to be truly saved. That should be a focus of entrance into a local church. Salvation and baptism which is a public profession of one’s salvation. It is truly sad to watch our mega churches today totally flip and invert the importance of salvation in entering and being a part of a local church.
Where once every single pastor was an expert at explaining the points of salvation and convicting false doctrine in every case of every single church member, today it is rare to find a pastor of a local church that can even explain salvation in broadest terms. Worse yet, almost all pastors have given up any concern about dealing with salvation issues in their sermons and never it seems to interrogate new members to see if they are truly saved.
As the local church fills its pews with unsaved, deceived unbelievers that are the stock of the church’s membership, nobody is concerned about evangelism, missions, nor prayer. They say, “SOMEBODY ought to be concerned about those things, but not me…”
A Church is an organization organized around doing God’s Work
The central purpose of any local church is Jesus Christ, and so his mission and work are the greatest concern of all its members and all its leadership fights to advance the work of Christ. But again, the heart and spirit of a true church has been stolen from it. If such a church has 1 or 2 pushing for evangelism, they are alone for most part. The rest give lip service but never actually open their mouths to witness to somebody.
A Church is a support Group for Christians
A forgotten aspect of churches is that this is the place that hears the problems of Christians and pray for their solution.
A Church is
What is a Church?
More Posts on Church
- Top Issues Church Planters Face #1
- Things that ruin a Church: Dominating, Controlling, Manipulating Dictator-Pastor
- Marks of an Unbiblical Church
- Developing Your Ministry Philosophy
- Biblical NT Church: Service Elements
- Jealousy among the church of God
- The Lifeblood of the Church is Evangelism
- Things that ruin a Church: Events that Decay pt 1
Pastor David Cox is a missionary. See my ministry updates here.