Jun
09
2010
Around the Blog in 80 Seconds: Church Polity Edition
There are quite a few helpful and interesting things circulating in the blogosphere today. A couple of them are noted below:
On Church Covenants
Justin Taylor posts the new church covenant adopted by his church. I really like this one. It retains some of the familiar elements of a widely used covenant, but adds some really helpful bits of quotations and paraphrases from Scripture while updating the language in places. A wonderful covenant for defining the commitments of members to the Lord, to one another, and to themselves. One of the most beautiful things a church can do is renew their covenant with one another at the Lord’s Supper and/or baptism. This is a great document to consider.
On Church Agreement
Michael Patton offers a post asking a necessary and provocative question: “How theologically diverse should your church be?” That’s a good question: How much agreement must there be in a local church? Now, Patton simply sets up and raises the question. We’re waiting, Michael, on the answer. But I suspect he’s wise enough to know that on some basic level this is worked out in the real live, flesh and blood, every dayness of each local church. It’s a question that admits of degrees and shades, but it’s worth thinking through.
On the Need for Ecclesiology
At TGC Reviews, Michael DeWalt has a good review of Daniel Hyde’s book, Welcome to a Reformed Church. In addition to a good overview of the book, DeWalt includes this gem from Hyde’s from a previous interview:
Not only is evangelicalism a churchless phenomenon—meaning, that the doctrine and nature of the church is utterly neglected—but much of what is passing itself off as “Reformed” today has no real semblance of ecclesiology. Sure there are great preachers out there and people who believe in the so-called five points of Calvinism, but it’s just evangelicalism with the doctrine of election added on. All this to say that I want visitors to my church, and those who may visit other churches, to know that we have a high regard for the church. Worship is our chief end as the Westminster Catechisms state and it is the context in which God meets with his people through the means he has appointed: Word and sacraments.
Boy, that’s spot-on. Ecclesiology is simply missing in far too many [irony alert] churches. I know that many people would say the doctrine of the church is a secondary matter. Viewed in abstract theological terms and compared to something like the Trinity, I’d agree. But switch the view to a practical, on-the-ground, how-do-you-care-for-the-sheep perspective, and what’s secondary in one sense becomes vitally important and necessary in another. I’m looking forward to reading this book.