Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09034. The relationship between church and state has produced more confusion, and more blood, than almost any other question in Christian history. Scripture gives us the principles rather than a constitution, and the principles have to be applied in circumstances that vary enormously from one country and century to another. What Scripture does establish…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 09050. The role of deacons is one of the most misunderstood things in church life, and the misunderstanding runs in two opposite directions. In some congregations deacons have become a board that runs the church and hires the minister. In others the title has become honorary, given to long-standing members as a mark of…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09069 Anyone who has spent time in church life knows that misused gifts are not a theoretical problem. They are a pastoral one. A gift is a good thing given by a good God, and yet it passes through hands that are still being sanctified, which means it can be handled carelessly, proudly, or…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 09049. The role of elders is set out in the New Testament with more care than almost any other practical matter, and yet many believers could not name what an elder is supposed to do. They know elders exist. They may know who theirs are. Beyond that it gets vague, and vagueness about leadership…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09033. Whether online church can replace physical attendance is a question almost nobody asked before 2020 and almost every minister has been asked since. Services went to a screen out of necessity, a good many people found the arrangement convenient, and a proportion of them never came back. The question is now a live…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09068 Few questions reach me more often than this one: how do I work out what my spiritual gifts actually are? It usually arrives with a little anxiety attached, as though the Christian life were a treasure hunt and somebody had mislaid the map. I want to take that anxiety out of the question…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 09048. Church government is the least glamorous subject in theology and one of the most consequential. It decides who chooses your minister, who holds the money, who can discipline a member, and what happens when a congregation and its leadership disagree. Nobody joins a church because of its constitution, and a great many people…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09032. A parachurch ministry is a Christian organisation that works alongside the local church without being one. The prefix comes from the Greek para, meaning beside. Student unions, mission agencies, prison and hospital chaplaincy work, Christian publishers, camp organisations, counselling services, apologetics ministries and relief charities all fall into the category. Opinions divide sharply….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09031. Church planting is the work of starting new local congregations, usually where none exists or where the existing churches cannot reach the population around them. It is not a modern technique borrowed from business, whatever the language of some conferences might suggest. It is the ordinary method by which the gospel spread across…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09047. What makes a true church true? It is not a theoretical question. People move house and need to find somewhere to worship. Believers watch a congregation drift and wonder whether it has crossed a line. Somebody starts a fellowship in a front room and asks whether it counts. Behind all of those situations…