Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9111. Religious consumerism is the habit of approaching church the way we approach every other service we buy, and it has crept into congregations so quietly that most of us do not notice we are doing it. We assess the music, the preaching, the children’s work, the coffee and the car park, and we…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9098. A church covenant is a written statement of mutual promises that members make to God and to one another when they join a congregation. It usually speaks of walking together in love, of watching over one another, of attending faithfully, of contributing to the work, and of submitting to discipline where necessary. Some…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 09090 The objection to church membership is easily stated and deserves a straight answer. Nowhere in the New Testament does anybody sign a form, and no verse says that a believer must join a local congregation. Given that, is the whole apparatus of rolls, interviews and membership classes a human invention that we have…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09036. A church covenant is a written statement of the promises members of a congregation make to God and to one another about how they will live together. It is not a statement of faith, which sets out what a church believes. It is a statement of commitment, setting out what the members undertake…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09052. Church membership is a formal, covenanted commitment between a believer and a local congregation, in which the believer commits to the life, worship, discipline and support of that body, and the body commits to teach, care for and be accountable to that believer. Written out like that it sounds rather grand for something…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 09029. Deciding whether to leave a church is one of the loneliest decisions a Christian makes, and it is usually made badly. People stay far too long in places that are damaging them, or they walk out over something that would have been settled by one honest conversation. Both mistakes hurt, and both are…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 53. A statement of faith and a systematic theology serve genuinely different purposes even though both attempt to summarise Christian doctrine, and confusing the two leads to unrealistic expectations of documents that were never designed to do the other one’s job. It is deliberately brief, functioning as a boundary marker defining who belongs within…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09009 The distinction between open and closed communion is one that many churchgoers encounter without fully understanding. It determines who is welcome at the Lord’s Table when a church celebrates the Supper, and the answer a church gives reveals something about how it understands the nature of the church, the ordinances, and the boundaries…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 9009 When a church gathers for the Lord’s Supper, who is welcome at the table? This question has led to different practices among churches, often described as “open communion,” “closed communion,” and “close communion.” Understanding these different approaches will help you navigate the variety of practices you may encounter and think through what your…