For several years now, I have been mulling over a nagging question: “What is church?” How do you know the difference between a Bible study and church? Is there a difference?
In Bible College and Seminary, I attended daily chapel services. Nearly every chapel service began with announcements, had a few songs and a prayer time, and finished with a message from a speaker. How is this different than the Sunday church service?
The seminary told us that chapel does not qualify as church. But why not? What is church? The chapels had singing, teaching, and prayer. We even had fellowship groups, and occasionally in chapel, took communion. Why is this not church?
Or, take the recent introduction of the online church. Can you really be involved with and “attend” a church from your computer at work or at home in your pajamas? If not, why not?
And when it comes to church, how many people need to be present? Can one believer in a prison cell in China have their own church service, or does there need to be a minimum of 2 or 3 people gathered together? And what are these 2 or 3 supposed to do, how often, and where? In a recent book by George Barna (Revolution
What is Church?
When it comes to the question of “What is Church?” Here is my preliminary hypothesis:
The church is the universal and spiritual body of believers in Jesus Christ:
- Which began on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2
- Gathers together in various physical locations for:
- Exaltation of God by glorifyinig Him through a life lived in worship
- Edification of one another through teaching, fellowship, and prayer
- Evangelism of the world through social and spiritual acts of service
So, what do you think? Even before we begin to break this down and look at Biblical passages related to it, are there things you feel I should add or take out? What are the ramifications of such a definition for the way churches are today?
How do you answer the question, “What is Church?” Let us know in the comments below.
Note: This post was written in 2007, and launched me on a study about the church, much of which is found in various other posts on this blog. Some of the results of this study about the church can be found in my eBook, Skeleton Church. In that book, I attempt to answer the question, “What is church?” by providing a bare-bones definition of church.
Just to get the comments started, if my definition is correct, what, if anything, is wrong with the four men who “go to church” on the golf course? What, if anything, is wrong with “attending” an online church?
Great definition.
Are you aware of House2House.net? They have a defintion for church using the acronym DNA:
“D” stands for Divine Truth (loving God/Jesus)
“N” stands for Nurturing Relationships (loving one another deeply)
“A” stands for Apostolic Mission (being on Jesus’ mission to the world)
It’s kinda like your three E’s.
David,
I like the DNA acronym. I might want a little more clarification on how they go about focusing on Divine Truth, but maybe I can get that from their website.
Thanks for this resource!
Jeremy
1)To me church is not a church unless it has elders/deacons or has an evangelist that is working in building those things up.
2) Acts 2:42, “Apostles Doctrine, Fellowship, Breaking of Bread, Prayer”
Anything else is just a Bible study group.
Please don’t misunderstand, I am not saying we have to have titled persons, or a fixed location, but there is a permanence about church by Paul’s instruction to raise up elders.
Second there is a sense of order, though we need not have an “order of service”. The apostle’s doctrine need not be preached behind a pulpit but it needs review. We need to partake in the Lord’s Supper WEEKLY and the fellowship and prayer parts should be a bit more intimate than a prayer list.
Yes we are way too institutional, but we can’t get away from it completely, we need to turn it wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy down.
Thanks, Johnny. Those are good points. By breaking of bread, do you mean a meal, or communion? How often?
What qualifies as “Apostle’s Doctrine”?
I think that attempts to answer these (and other) questions leads to the ever-increasing institutionalization of the church.
I’m not sure what I mean by the Lord’s Supper. The chicklet and cup of grape juice seems superficial sometimes. The full blown meal . . . seems like overkill. But until I figure it out, whatever it is, it should be done weekly 🙂
The apostles doctrine is just the NT (they were given the authority to set up the church Matt 16 & 18, Eph 2)or to put it more simply, the Bible part. Where preaching is usually done, but anyway to learn the scriptures would be fine by me.
Yes, I am not in favor of the “Savior’s Snacklet” either. It even appears that elsewhere in Acts, the believers met “daily” rather than just weekly, and it seems that maybe a meal was often involved. I am not saying this is the way it must be done today…but there are hints that this is how it was done then.
When the book of Acts says that they “met together on the first day of the week to break bread” ACTS 20:7, it shows Apostolic precedent (there is that word again) that the NT church had a regular meeting on Sunday (starting of course on our Saturday at 6:00 pm) and they had a meal/Lord’s Supper weekly. Yes they met daily in the beginning but the weekly service became the norm (for them and should be for us with an option to meet more often of course).
Sunday is the Day that God began to create.
Sunday is the Day that God raised Jesus from the dead.
Sunday is a work day, not a day of rest, that was Saturday and another discussion. I believe the church should be doing something Sunday!
Sunday was the first day of the church, on the day of Pentecost 50 days after Passover (7×7 = 49 + 1).
The concept of week is only found in the Bible. There is no astrological/star/planet phenomenon to base “week” upon.
I think week is special and a point we need to concede to the established institutional church. Let’s just not be robots when we do it!
Interesting. I like the point about Sunday being a work day and the church should be doing something. Great, great point!
The church is the universal and spiritual body of believers in Jesus Christ:
which began on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2
and gathers together in various physical locations for:
exaltation of God by glorifyinig Him through a life lived in worship
edifcation of one another through teaching, fellowship, and prayer
evangelism of the world through social and spiritual acts of service
“Church” means “called out ones” and started in the Garden of Eden with Adam. It needs no “physical location”, has sacraments and depends on the Word of God mediated by the Spirit of God for the glory of God.
“Believe me,” returned Jesus, “the time is coming when worshipping the Father will not be a matter of ‘on this hill-side’ or ‘in Jerusalem’. Nowadays you are worshipping with your eyes shut. We Jews are worshipping with our eyes open, for the salvation of mankind is to come from our race. Yet the time is coming, yes, and has already come, when true worshippers will worship in spirit and in reality. Indeed, the Father looks for men who will worship him like that. God is spirit, and those who worship him can only worship in spirit and in reality.” ~ John 4:21-24 (J.B. Phillips New Testament)
Lustus,
That is a decent definition of “church.” I am not sure I would say that it began with Adam in the Garden of Eden, but I see your point. I agree it needs no sacraments or location.
No, Jeremy, I said it has sacraments. Adam and Eve were clothed in a sacrament which is a type of Christ, the covering of the blood drained Lamb of God. And have you not seen the creeds? The idea that the church began at Pentecost proceeds from the novel doctrine of Dispensationalism I believe; the historic orthodox church has no such notion. For example, The Belgic Confession states: “This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects.” Or, The Heidelberg Catechism states “That the Son of God from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, defends, and preserves to himself by his Spirit and word, out of the whole human race, a church chosen to everlasting life, agreeing in true faith; and that I am and forever shall remain, a living member thereof.” The examples could be multiplied. May the Lord bless your study.
Ha! My bad. I misquoted you.
Yes, I have seen the creeds. It is all I have been blogging about for the past thee weeks, and how dangerous they are to the life and vitality of the church. Just because a creed says something does not make it right.
I disagree with several points in those creeds you mentioned. One of my points of disagreement is the understanding of “church.”
Lustus,
I am not too interested in a debate about when the church started…it is generally fruitless.
Much more important is learning to be the church right now, since the church certainly exists today, and we are members of the church.
I am not going to exclude you for thinking church began at creation, and I hope you would not exclude me for thinking it began at Pentecost.
No problem. Let’s disregard the creeds for the time being so that you can tell me why you think the church “began on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2”. For example, would you exclude the prophets from the church? Doesn’t Paul say, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. ” ~ Ephesians 2:19-22 (NASB)
We are the ekklesia. Where and how we gather is irrelevant so long as we gather. Corporate worship is awesome but what we’ve done as far as creating superstar pastors and mega churches is a bit rediculous and it’s not working. I’m glad your posting on this and can’t wait to read more.
Yes, I have done a lot more posting on this in recent months. This post itself was from 2007 when I first began to ask questions about the church. If you found this post through Facebook or Google+, it is because I am going back and updating all my posts for SEO purposes.
Jeremy, you said…
“I am about to embark on a series of posts that attempt to begin to answer some of these questions…”
I don’t suppose you have those posts categorized somewhere?
I agree completely with your definition. It was these shared ideas that drew me to you.
We have put too much importance on Sunday church and the building. All the great stories of Jesus from birth to resurrection and after didn’t happen in a church building. Think in Matthew there are 34 individual encounters with Jesus – 1 was in church. Mark has 26 – 2 were in church. There is a very good reason for that.
We are church and whatever you do – if it brings you closer to God and experiencing Him for who He really is – then it is great – it makes you a better church!
My husband and I love discussing any stuff about the bible and the times, concepts, psychology etc. We spend hours in a week on that and learning – that for me is church and fellowship in Christ and obviously to share that again – for me mostly online!
I do not believe church was meant to be these mega churches where you don’t even know 10% of the church.
The saddest part for me about the Sunday church thing is: that although they say you are welcome and preach love – it is contradicted by their actions of not liking what you believe because it is different and telling you that you can’t ask these or those questions or you have to do this or that or can’t give testimony because it is not what the pastor believes. It makes me sick……………
Thank fully I have great teachers online like Jeremy and others, people to have fellowship with and I believe more opportunity to share your testimony.