Archives for 2015

Guy Davies writes:

In my time I’ve come across a number of Christians who don’t attend or belong to a local church. They are not ill. They don’t live on a remote island in the middle of the North Sea. They simply don’t go to church. Often they will say that they used to belong to a church, or even a series of churches, but could not find a fellowship that would do what they felt was right. These are not “nominal Christians” who are too apathetic about God to be bothered to go to church. The people in question are often deeply religious and have a zeal for the truth as they understand it. They don’t belong to a church on principle.

Some “Churchless Christians” are bitterly critical and uncharitable about believers who are involved in church life. What these friends need to realize is no local church is perfect. The church is a gathering of saved sinners. To opt out of church life because you can’t find a fellowship that meets your exacting standards is not an option.

I am talking about involvement in gospel churches here, not congregations that don’t hold to the truth. It is right to have high standards. But any distinctively Christian standard must be motivated and controlled by a love that covers a multitude of sins.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

How can we claim to love God whom we have not seen if we do not love his people?

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21–22).

I get a bit concerned when I hear someone say that they don’t attend church because they have never been able to find a fellowship that will change to suit them. This not a gospel-driven attitude. We are not meant to try to get our own way and leave the church if we don’t. Consider what God’s Word says:

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4).

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31–32).

I recently spoke to a “Churchless Christian” who claimed to be Reformed and Puritan in his theology. He didn’t seem to grasp that the Reformation was never about isolated individualism. It was about the re-formation of the church. Puritanism likewise was a movement dedicated to the purifying of the church. Accordingly, John Calvin gave a very stern warning to those who cut themselves off from church life,

“We have said that the symbols by which the church is discerned are the preaching of the Word and the observance of the sacraments, for these cannot anywhere exist without producing fruit and prospering by the blessing of God. I say not that wherever the Word is preached fruit immediately appears; but that in every place where it is received, and has a fixed abode, it uniformly displays its efficacy.

“Be this as it may, when the preaching of the gospel is reverently heard, and the sacraments are not neglected, there for the time the face of the church appears without deception or ambiguity and no man may with impunity spurn her authority, or reject her admonitions, or resist her counsels, or make sport of her censures, far less revolt from her, and violate her unity (see Chap. 2 sec. 1, 10, and Chap. 8 sec. 12).

“For such is the value which the Lord sets on the communion of his church, that all who contumaciously alienate themselves from any Christian society, in which the true ministry of his Word and sacraments is maintained, he regards as deserters of religion.

“So highly does he recommend her authority, that when it is violated he considers that his own authority is impaired. For there is no small weight in the designation given to her, “the house of God,” “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). By these words Paul intimates, that to prevent the truth from perishing in the world, the church is its faithful guardian, because God has been pleased to preserve the pure preaching of his word by her instrumentality, and to exhibit himself to us as a parent while he feeds us with spiritual nourishment, and provides whatever is conducive to our salvation.

“Moreover, no mean praise is conferred on the church when she is said to have been chosen and set apart by Christ as his bride, “not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Eph. 5:27), as “his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23).

“Whence it follows, that revolt from the church is denial of God and Christ. Wherefore there is the more necessity to beware of a dissent so iniquitous; for seeing by it we aim as far as in us lies at the destruction of God’s truth, we deserve to be crushed by the full thunder of his anger. No crime can be imagined more atrocious than that of sacrilegiously and perfidiously violating the sacred marriage which the only begotten Son of God has condescended to contract with us.” (Institutes IV.1.10).

The Westminster Assembly’s Directory for the Publick Worship of God states,

“When the congregation is to meet for public worship, the people (having prepared their hearts thereunto) ought to all come, and join therein; not absenting themselves from public ordinances through negligence, or upon pretence of private meetings.”

There is nothing Reformed or Puritan about being a “Churchless Christian.” A believer who does not belong to a congregation of the saints is an anomaly. Sheep belong in a flock.

A concerned minister once told R. B. Jones, principal of Porth Bible School, about a somewhat fractious church in South Wales. The fellowship had suffered division after division and one man had left the church and was meeting on his own. R. B. quipped, “The Lord help him if he has a split!”

Let us go back to first principles and consider why Christians need church:

1. Means of grace

The means of grace are deployed in the context of the church. The Word is preached and read; corporate prayer is offered to God; hymns and psalms are sung in praise of the Lord’s Name. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are administered. God has ordained all these things to create faith, to confirm faith, to feed his people, and to enable them to grow in grace. Can we really do without them?

2. A community of love

The New Testament constantly exhorts believers to love one another. This is often not easy, but it is the most basic principle of the Christian life.

We develop and grow in maturity as we learn to live with other believers with their foibles and problems and they learn to live with us. This sometimes brings us heartache and pain. But we have no choice but to love God’s people.

We cannot do this at a distance. Love demands involvement and real fellowship. Some “Churchless Christians” that I have met have been immature, impatient, and argumentative. They cannot cope with others disagreeing with their dictates. Opting out of church life may be the easy option for them, but they are not facing up to their deep rooted spiritual problems.

3. The body of Christ

The church is the body of Christ. In this body there is unity as well as diversity. There are diversities of gifts and backgrounds. Also there will be differing levels of spiritual maturity and understanding.

We must not try to obliterate the rich diversity of the church by insisting on drab uniformity. Learning to cope with and even appreciate the diversity of church life is an essential aspect of Christian discipleship.

If a person professes to belong to Christ as the head, then he should also want to belong to a local church, which is a visible expression of Christ’s body.

Our fellowship within the body of Christ is meant to be an anticipation of glory. If we can’t get on with Christians in the here and now, do we really want to be with them in heaven?

Now, some Christians may stop going to church because they have been deeply hurt by an uncaring fellowship. The way to find healing and restoration, however, is not to isolate yourself, but rather to get involved in a church where you will find pastoral care and loving acceptance from the people of God.

If you are a “Churchless Christian” on principle, then I beseech you to consider your ways. Staying at home and surfing the net is no substitute for belonging to a church. You won’t find it easy to fit into a fellowship after years of isolation, but this is what God calls you to attempt to do.

Reprinted with permission from
http://exiledpreacher.blogspot.ca/2007/10/churchless-christians.html

10 AM Worship (at the Good Shepherd School)

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5 PM Worship (at the Lutheran Church of the Master)

10 AM Worship

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3 PM Worship

10 AM Worship

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3 PM Worship

Over a decade ago, Dr. Robert S. Rayburn wrote:

In our day, the evening service is rapidly disappearing from the Sunday schedule of the Christian church. This is a great change and, in my view, a most unfortunate one.

A 1985 survey of the favourite hymns of British church-goers placed several evening hymns in the top ten (including The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended [No. 1], and Abide with Me [No. 7]). It is painful to contemplate generations of Christians growing up and not learning to sing these superb hymns so beloved of generations of the saints. But if there are no evening services, it is unlikely that these hymns will retain a place in the church’s mind and heart. The number of the elect who were summoned to faith and life in Christ by preaching in Sunday evening services must be very large. But now there are only half as many services in which a man or woman, boy or girl, might hear the words of life.

Are there good reasons for the church to meet twice on the Lord’s Day? Well, there must be, for the church has done so virtually without exception throughout her history. At Faith Presbyterian Church we love to sing Hail! Gladdening Light, one of the earliest Christian hymns extant, dating from at least the 3rd century and perhaps earlier. It was a hymn for the evening service of the early Christian church. The arguments for a second Lord’s Day service—that is, an evening service—include these:

First, God made provision in the liturgical regulation of the tabernacle and temple for both morning and evening sacrifices every day and he explicitly required these to be continued and increased on the Sabbath Day (Num. 28:1–10).

Second, Psalm 92, which is explicitly identified as a psalm “For the Sabbath Day,” reads, “It is good…to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night” (cf. Ps. 134:1).

Third, in the New Testament we have record of evening worship on the Christian Sabbath, that is Sunday (Acts 20:7) and we have it in a book that very clearly intends to set before us facts representative of the life of early Christianity. Interestingly, what might be called the first Sunday “service” of the new covenant epoch took place at night when the Lord on Easter evening met his disciples gathered in a room in Jerusalem.

Fourth, just as morning has a special significance in the history of salvation (e.g. our Saviour rose from the dead in the morning), even so many events have sanctified the evening (e.g. the Saviour’s birth, the transfiguration, the struggle in Gethsemane, etc.). There is something appropriate in the church worshipping at the time that recollects such sacred and important events.

Fifth, there is the consistent witness of the Christian tradition, from early Christianity, to English Puritanism and Scottish Presbyterianism’s “afternoon” service, to Anglican evensong.

Sixth, there are a variety of practical considerations that, together, strongly recommend the practice of an evening worship service on the Sabbath Day.

For example, such a service provides another opportunity for ministers to preach and teach the Word of God. All the more in our day—when the church is not as biblically literate as it once was—reducing the number of times Christians hear the Word read and taught is hardly a recipe for spiritual prosperity; it is hardly a recipe for renewal. I give my own testimony as a preacher that, were it not for the evening service—a well attended evening service for which I am very grateful—there are a many parts of the Bible the congregation would never have had taught to it; there are many biblical themes that would never have been taught so comprehensively were I limited to a single sermon each week.

Further, the evening service provides a helpful structure to support the sanctification of the Lord’s Day. Christians universally find it much easier to keep the Lord’s Day holy and make proper use of its time if the hours following the morning worship are an interval between two services. Then there is a limited amount of time in the middle of the day to put to proper use before it is time to return to church. The definite structure of the day lends itself to obedience and to a wise use of the day.

In those churches where the Christian family is home from church at 11:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m., with the remainder of the day to its end stretching before them and with no occasion to return to church, the sanctification of the day is provided no support and now depends entirely on the determined exercise of the will. We are finding in American evangelicalism that this is a recipe for disaster so far as the holiness of the Sabbath day is concerned. But, if keeping the Sabbath holy is one of the great engines of Christian faith, holiness, and joy—as the Bible teaches that it is—the loss of the Sabbath in the evangelical church is no small thing.

Furthermore, there is a character to the evening that lends to worship a particular character. Generations of Christians have known this from hallowed experience. The English poet, Meredith, has a line, “the largeness of the evening earth.” G.K. Chesterton, commenting on that line, wrote, “The sensation that the cosmos has all its windows open is very characteristic of evening…” The special character of evening hymns bears witness to the particular set of holy thoughts that crowd the soul in the evening hours. Christian worship on the Lord’s Day evening gains a special character from the hour.

God’s people through the ages have prized the second service. Christian children growing up with Sunday evenings at church remember them with a special fondness. Most Christians, I suppose, have the memory of a special spiritual atmosphere that attached to evening worship. We are, after all, talking about only another hour or two out of the entire week. Surely we should have a good reason—a very good reason—why we would not make a special effort to be in God’s house, to sing his praise and hear his Word, twice on the Lord’s holy Day. A day devoted to his worship and to the refreshment of our souls in him, surely is very naturally a day that begins and ends in God’s house, among God’s people, with his Word in our ears and his praise in our hearts.

by Dr. Robert S. Rayburn, pastor of Faith PCA in Tacoma, Washington, USA, June 30, 2003