[Music] uh since Mark did steal my introduction I'll just want to underscore that this is going to be a talk on poity so it is going to be nuts and bolts it is going to be structured is going to be thinking about kind of the authority flowchart in your church but I want to underscore at the beginning and throughout and at the end that this is really about a kind of ecosystem of helping people flourish and grow in the church so this is not merely kind of getting stuff right on paper it's not merely getting
stuff right in terms of processes but I want to help you think about as pastors how the relationship between your Authority as a pastor and the authority you share with your fellow pastors that relationship between that and the congregation's authority is crucial to understanding the shape of your calling and what your job description should be as a pastor so that's where we're going I've got three basic points this is all on congregationalism that's the overall topic specifically Elder Le congregationalism I'm going to Define and defend Elder Le congregationalism that's first point second point I'm going
to describe how Elder Le congregationalism should work in practice at least sketch a little bit of what this should look like in the life of the church and third I'm going to close with a case study on congregation ISM in a church plant that's not meant to exclude people who aren't planting churches but just as one way of getting out a case study is some of the Practical implications and it can help those of you who are in churches that I'm going for a while think about how these things play out as well so first
point a definition and defense of Elder Le congregationalism here's the definition Elder Le congregationalism is the scriptural conviction that the gathered local church as a whole as led by their Elders has final Earthly authority to render judgment about what constitutes a true gospel confession and who is a true gospel Confessor that's a long dense definition I'll give it to you again Elder Le congregationalism is the scriptural conviction that the gathered local church as a whole as led by their Elders has final Earthly authority to render judgment about what constitutes a true gospel confession and who
is a true gospel Confessor Confessor in other words it's the responsibility of the whole church not just the a pastor not just the elders not maybe your Church's elders and the Elders of other congregations with apologies to the few PCA Brethren are here uh not a regional Bishop you PCA Brothers while I'm thinking of you certainly there's elements of this that you will and already do incorporate into your church so I hope you won't feel totally uh alienated there's plenty here for you as well but in any case my contention is that it is the
whole Church's responsibility to confess and uphold sound Doctrine to join to their number those who credibly confess Christ and to remove from their number those who confess Christ but whose lives fundamentally contradict that confession I'll give you eight biblical arguments to support this definition there Ed from Jonathan leman's book don't fire your church members which is one of the ones you've received uh coming in and Jonathan also has some really helpful material in his little book understanding The congregation's Authority so that's also very useful and more accessible good to give away work through with leaders
in your church that kind of thing first argument the final court of appeal in a matter of discipline which is the highest Authority in a church is the entire gathered congregation we see this in Matthew 18:1 17 after instructing first one then two or three more to rebuke someone in sin Jesus charges that smaller group to tell it to the church if the person fails to repent even after the whole church has gotten involved has communicated with them it is the whole church that is to act to exclude that person from their Fellowship second argument
Jesus says that the church has the authority to make this assessment and render this judgment because it possesses the Keys of the Kingdom the power to excommunicate is rooted in a grant of authority from Jesus to the local church as a whole and this Authority involves both affirming and when necessary rejecting professions of faith in Christ here's a scriptural support for this what Jesus says to Peter in Matthew 16:19 he says to the whole church in Matthew 1818 right after the verse we've just considered Jesus says truly I say to you whatever you bind on
Earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven this is the language Jesus used when he gave Peter the Keys of the Kingdom and it shows that it is ultimately the local church that's exercising these Keys there's no mention here's a third argument there's no mention of Bishops pastors or Elders in this institutional Charter of Matthew 16 and 18 or Matthew 28 where we see it in action nor does the New Testament ever give a single example of Elders or overseers unilaterally exercising this authority of the Keys
of the Kingdom fourth the Apostle Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 5 confirm each of these first three points we've made so I'm sure it'll be familiar to you the situation Paul speaks regarding the person who is sleeping with his stepmother charges the whole Corinthian Church in Verses 4 and 5 when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his Spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord first thing to note here is that Paul is calling on the whole congregation to expel this person from fellowship though Paul doesn't use the language of Keys of the Kingdom the substance is there the church is acting in jesus' name on the basis of his authority present in their Gathering and again Paul doesn't call on leaders in particular to do this but the whole church this is remarkable considering that Paul is speaking as an apostle in verse three he says he's already pronounced judgment on this person and yet in verses four and five
he calls on the church Church to render this judgment he calls on the church to exclude this individual we'll come back to that point in a minute a fifth argument just carrying on at the end of this passage Paul explicitly tells the whole congregation in Corinth that it is their responsibility to judge so 1 Corinthians 5:12 Paul asks for what have I to do with judging Outsiders is it not the those inside the church whom you plural are to judge he explicitly calls on the congregation to render judgment on those who are in their membership
sixth Paul tells the churches of galatia in Galatians 1:8 but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you let him be accursed the fundamental thing here is to consider to whom whom is Paul appealing who is he speaking to who is he going after who is he concerned will either accept or reject these false teachers well the church here doesn't have to defer the matter of gospel faithfulness to a higher authority like a teacher might have to bring an issue to a
school principal the church doesn't have to defer and I would argue should not defer to a presbyter or bishop or even an apostle or Angel instead Paul is assuming and asserting they themselves need to reject a false teacher this is their responsibility Paul is charging them and holding them accountable to deal with this seventh in 2 Corinthians 2:6 Paul urges the congregation to accept back an excluded member who is now repentant he writes for such a one this punishment by the majority is enough so this person has been excluded now they're repentant so they need
to welcome him back in and the exclusion took place not by the decision of a single Pastor not apparently by a small group of leaders because Paul says this was inflicted by the majority somehow the majority of the congregation's members got together and acted jointly eth a final support for Elder Le congregationalism churches can exist without Elders when a little bit abstract we'll come back to flesh it out in a little bit but now I just want to make the kind of basic exegetical Point uh that we see churches that exist before having elders and
exist without having Elders so in Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas return on a follow-up missionary journey to churches they had already planted to appoint Elders in those churches in Titus 15 Paul charges Titus I left you in cre so that you might put what remained into order and appoint Elders in every town as I directed you it's clear that there's already churches in these towns and in order to put these churches into order one of the things Titus needs to do is appoint Elders in them so churches existed without elders and of course to be
put into proper order they needed elders but if Elders were the ones who actually had authority to constitute the church to decide who's in and who's out and on what basis it's difficult to see how you could have a church at all without having Elders it's almost as if the ERS would by necessity by definition have to come before the church if the elders are the ones who have that power to say who's in and who's out who have that power to constitute the church so you have churches before you have Elders I want to
briefly address now three of the most common objections to congregationalism objection one isn't congregationalism just building on American ideas of democracy well short answers know one of the reasons is that power in the church doesn't root in the people but in God's word all together are fundamentally submitted to the word of God there's no sense in which this is about kind of equal representation of an individual agenda or constituency so members meetings should not be a free-for-all where everyone pushes their own agenda if you have a church that has Defcon five level disputes about whether
to repaint the baptistry you have a CH Church where congregationalism has gone terribly wrong instead of just equating congregationalism with democracy you might say that biblical congregationalism is a mixed government the church is part monarchy in that it is governed supremely by one the Lord Jesus Christ all we do is in total submission to him the church is part oligarchy in that it is led by a few the elders and it is indeed part democracy in that final Authority in matters that Define the existence of the church belongs to the many to the whole congregation
together a second objection congregationalism lets the Sheep fire the shepherd this is what happened to Jonathan Edwards it's probably the first objection of congregationalism I ever heard and it's one of the ones I hear most often right how can a polity possibly work if it lets the Sheep fire the Shepherd that doesn't make any sense well then Paul doesn't really make any sense because he tells the churches of galatia to get rid of even him or an angel for teaching a false gospel this doesn't mean that congregations have cart blanch to fire their pastors that
they should sort of hold that hanging over the pastor's head congregation should only remove pastors for serious doctrinal or moral failure Jonathan Edward's congregation was probably wrong to fire him and yet they possessed the authority to do so misuse of authority does not and should not nullify its proper use bad marriages shouldn't lead us to abandon the institution of marriage objection number three and I want to take this one very seriously and give give a bit more time to it the Bible tells church members to submit to and obey their Elders to say that a
congregation has final Authority reduces Elder authority to Mere advice or influence which isn't really Authority at all this critique treats Authority as only one kind of thing but in all sorts of areas of life we see different kinds of authority that different people exercise interlocking together and working together so as I mentioned earlier a school teacher has one kind of authority and the principal has another the quarterback has one kind of authority the coach has another kind of authority and the ref has a different kind of authority they all have real Authority it all fits
together somehow it's all part of how the game is played and the Bible establishes several kinds of authority in the church that all work together so let's talk a little bit about what kind of authority Elders have and how it interlocks with the congregation's authority the first basic point is that the whole church possesses the Keys of the Kingdom and the elders lead the church in their exercise of the Keys of the Kingdom so for instance if a matter of church discipline arises it is finally the congregation's decision whether to exclude that person from fellowship
but they've recognized Elders precisely to lead and teach and provide wisdom in just these kind of difficult situations again 1 Corinthians 5 I think illustrates this balance between the congregation's possession of authority and the elders work of leading them in using that Authority Paul's an apostle not an elder but there's a useful illustration here as we've seen Paul says in verse three that he has passed judgment on on this person he uses a form of the Greek verb kreno and then in verse 12 he tells the congregation to render judgment on those inside the church
same verb same word if an apostle would call upon a congregation to exercise its Authority in a matter of church discipline how much more should Elders do the same how much more should Elders refuse to unilaterally exercise Authority apart from the congregation what is putting vers verse 3 and verse together look like in our churches practically it looks like the elders standing before the church and saying something like after countless hours shepherding this individual we've become convinced that they're living in unrepentant sin and that we as a church should no longer go on affirming their
profession of Faith that's the Judgment we've come to so we recommend that you the congregation together exercise that judgment and unless the Cong congregation knows something the elders don't or the elders are contradicting scripture the congregation should follow its Elders in their use of the exercise of the keys I won't take the time to unpack this but if you want to have some technical language for this you might say that the congregation has an authority of command and the elders have an authority of counsel and you can think about different ways in different spheres kind
of the state has an authority of command a husband over his wife has an authority of counsel and U I won't I won't uh take the time to burden us before dinner with some some fine distinctions there but I think that's a useful distinction be happy to talk about it in more detail later in the end congregations will answer to Jesus for how they respond to their Elders leadership here and now in matters related to what is a true gospel confession and who is a true gospel Confessor they have final Earthly Authority in submission to
the Reign and will of Christ but notice how scripture talks about pastoral or Elder Authority what kind of an authority is that what shape does it have the fundamental character of Elder's Authority consists in teaching modeling and training so teaching 1 Timothy 3:2 says Elders must be able to teach and the New Testament over and over again charges Elders to teach sound Doctrine in the life that Accords with sound Doctrine mod in Elders are to set an example for the flock as 1 Peter 5 says they're to walk down the path of Christ in front
of the church calling them to follow in the way they're going and finally Elders Authority takes the shape of training Ephesians 4:11-12 says that God has given Pastor teachers to equip the Saints for the work of ministry so Elders are trainers when we're talking about the who and what of gospel confession elders don't take the at bat for the church they're not the ones taking the swing what they do instead is they model the swing they teach the swing they teach the congregation how to read the pitches and then bring the whole congregation up to
take the at bat Elders are fundamentally trainers so then a second main point that flows right out of this how should Elder Le congregationalism work in practice in a nutshell congregationalism gives the whole church a job and the elders train the church to do that job again Ephesians 4 equip the Saints for the work of ministry the whole church is responsible to attend regularly to preserve and promote the gospel to affirm gospel professors by receiving and dismissing members the whole church is responsible to disciple other members and help them grow to maturity in Christ the
whole church is responsible to share the gospel with Outsiders the Great Commission belongs to all of us and the church is responsible to follow and submit to their leaders when you join a church you're not fundamentally signing up for a club with benefits but for a job following Jesus and helping the whole church together follow Jesus and Elders role is to train church members to do their jobs so for those of you who are pastors Elder Le congregationalism defines your job description your job isn't to do ministry for your people but to equip them to
do ministry your job isn't to make all the hard decisions for your people but to equip and train and lead them in such a way that when it comes to it they will make Godly and god-honoring decisions in difficult matters your church faces together furthermore there should be a kind of virtuous circle a kind of positive feedback loop between formal and informal aspects of congregational responsibility between what you might call the members meeting meeting once a month every other other month whatever it may be and every other day of the month how people live Monday
to Saturday Sunday included 24/7 let's again think about a case of church discipline to see how there should be this feedback loop between the structure and the whole life of the church let's say there's a case of discipline for adultery the elders recommend the church act to excommunicate and the church unanimously follows now many people step in and say well wasn't that just a pointless rubber stamp isn't that just a kind of needless waste of hours and it's a kind of pointless inefficiency I don't think so the fact that the church itself exercises this solemn
responsibility should shape the way members think about their whole life in the church and what it means to be a Christian so when the church is called upon to excommunicate someone for sin such a solemn and sober responsibility these kind kinds of things should be going on in people's hearts and Minds maybe a quick prayer oh God keep me from sexual sin I don't want to go down that road and end up there I should call up Steve and and get more regular accountability and be more transparent with people in the church about these struggles
I'm going through or here's another one what about that man's wife and children they must feel absolutely dragged through the gutter right now what can we do to come around them and care for them and help them we have a stake in their lives this is our respons responsibility or how can I as a single Christian help married couples flourish help families stay together I have a stake in all of their lives and none of us can none of us can care for the whole church none of us can absorb all these responsibilities but the
point is if you train your church to take responsibility for each other it will draw out all sorts of Godly fruit and the Very formal responsibility of standing up and saying this is your guy's job trains them to do that of course this kind of congregationalism will only work if the church is defined by characterized by a culture of gospel-driven transparent discipleship onetoone personto person heart-to- heart congregationalism this is why some people don't like it congregationalism offers a litmus test of a congregation's spiritual maturity congregationalism only works if a Church's members are growing in maturity
and unity in Christ if the problem with congregationalism is ungodly people Pastor get to work we don't abandon congregationalism because it only works with the members of regenerate wait a minute that's a referendum on the Pastoral job description what kind of job are we doing what are we doing what are we devoting ourselves to are we devoting ourselves to building up the members in godliness or are there other priorities that are taking that place my family currently rents a house if there's something that's not exactly working 100% in the house but we can live with
it and it's not going to do damage probably just let it go you know I'm not going to call the owner and bother him and he's going to have come out and fix it and get somebody to hire it if we can live with it we'll live with it I'm passive I'm not a stakeholder in the house I'm only going to be there Lord willing a year you know I'm interested in the least possible hassle from this house but if I were an owner I'd take a more active interest in the house I'd be thinking
long term I'd want to improve the thing make it more useful for my family and our hospitality and our ministry I'd be thinking about 102 years from now is this house going to be in good shape congregationalism makes your church members owners not renters it requires them to buy in to the health of the church and the biblical responsibility it gives them should over time come to shape and in form their whole concept of what it means to be a church member and therefore their whole vision of what it means to live as a Christian
these aren't only structures they're about how people are held accountable to live in Christ and that accountability isn't just meant to be a kind of negative thing or slap on the wrist or just kind of cleaning up problems it's meant to be a way of helping ensure the inte and health of the whole congregation third point I'll conclude with a few thoughts on how congregationalism should play out in a church plant I hope it'll offer a kind of useful case study for thinking about some of these nuts and bolts and how they come into practical
uh effect first of all the first real question is kind of chicken in the egg how should you actually move from not being a church to being a church who has the authority to make that happen I would argue that a church is const constituted by its members self-conscious commitment to one another so you move from not church to church when the whole assembly commits to become a church together to exercise the Keys of the Kingdom together this is what congregationalists and Baptists have often called covenanting as a church and I think you see biblical
support for this in Matthew 18:20 Jesus saying where two or three Gather in my name if there am I among them well I don't think that happens by accident I don't think you gather in Jesus name if you bump into a couple in the grocery store there's a kind of coming together to represent Jesus to act on his behalf to commit ourselves to worship Christ and serve him and hold each other accountable to do those things so I would suggest that if you're the church planter of course you should lead this process that's that's what
people are going to look to you to do that's what you should do but you should also make it clear that you don't have the authority to make a church it's not just hey I'm the pastor I say there's a church and poof now there's a church instead from the very beginning make it clear to your cour team to your early attenders that you'll only have a church when they commit to each other secondly we saw in Acts 14:23 and Titus 15 that you can have a church without elders but I would argue you can't
have Elders without a church so once your people have committed to be a church together logically speaking I think then they should formally vote to recognize you as a pastor and if you have any other qualified gifted men who intend to serve as elders them too so it's obvious to everybody of course who the the pastor of the church plant is but I think there's something important in them recognizing and calling you to be their Pastor I think in a sense you shouldn't consider yourself their Pastor they shouldn't consider you their Pastor until that happens
there doesn't have to be any kind of awkward time lag here one friend of mine planted a church with something like 33 members a couple of other brothers who were intended to serve as Elders they went out from a a kind of sending church with all that in mind and in their first public meeting they covenanted as a church they came together they the church voted to call him as their pastor and these other elders and it was all in one go so there doesn't have to be some sort of weird waiting period this could
all happen at once so in all the Practical questions surrounding the birth of a church I would suggest you should be guided by the principle that the church exercises the Keys of the Kingdom and the elders lead in that exercise two more brief practical recommendations first I would encourage you to move toward constituting as a church covenanting as a church as quickly as you can manage obviously there's different context different situations but but feel a kind of pressure pushing in that direction on the positive side it sends the message that to be a part of
the church is to have responsibility for the church to be committed to the church and if you wait and delay and try to get as many people in as you can and get as much momentum as you can and you're not really clear about what it's going to look like in the long term well you run the risk of false advertising you run the risk of people being jolted out of their seat six months in when they hear wait a minute church membership discipline responsib ility accountability I'm out of here so I would encourage you
to move toward covenanting as soon as you can secondly I would encourage you to treat congregational responsibilities as part of the normal expectations of church membership and consequently make it as easy as possible for people to fulfill them so if you face the challenges of space and meeting times and it's always often a struggle in church plants well if you only have kind of one time in place where your whole church can get together think about how you might work those responsibilities in maybe into that meeting Maybe into a sequel to that meeting there's plenty
of ways to be hospitable to visitors and people who aren't members while the church members attend to more private family matters so Brothers especially those of you who are pastors I hope this picture of Elder Le congregationalism helps clarify your calling as a pastor in giving you your church to Shepherd God has given you something like a teenager who's now behind the wheel of the car it's scary because they hold the keys it's their foot on the gas but you're there to lead to model to patiently teach and instruct and having your teenager behind the
wheel isn't just good for them it's good for you too the whole point of pastoring like parenting is to lovingly lead people to maturity that's what you're here for your job isn't to rule but to lead your job isn't to control we're going to hear a bit more about this later your job isn't to control but to instruct and encourage your job isn't to always have the right answer and make sure that's the answer that goes but to teach and train and equip your people so that they together will come to the right answer from
hearts and Minds formed by God's word and God's spirit at work within them let's pray together Heavenly Father we pray that through the patient and diligent pastoral teaching and modeling and training of the men in this room you would cause dozens and even hundreds of congregations to grow to maturity and unity in Christ to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ we pray in Jesus name amen
