Norm and his wife had a complex relationship with churches. At least, that’s the way Norm thought about it. Sometimes, they visited here. Other times, they attended there. Often, they skipped church entirely. Over the long course of their marriage, they had been members of several churches, although in those cases they fell into membership more so than chose it. And after a few years, they’d move on. Norm tried not to see it as a problem. He figured maybe it was a good thing, getting to know different people and hearing different preaching. But at times, he missed feeling at home. And he wondered who would really care for his wife and him when they needed it, which might be soon. Norm also wondered whether a wrong view of church had contributed to their wandering.
Body
Thinking of a church as a membership organization or social or religious club is easy. Churches can in some ways look and even behave like other community organizations. They have members who gather at a regular place at regular times to conduct their affairs. Those affairs can include things in which other community organizations participate, like social times, volunteering in the community, caring for the young, caring for one another, maintaining the facility, and raising organization finances. Yet a church differs vastly from other community organizations in that the church is the body of Christ. Christ is the body’s head, and the church’s members each carry out their own function as the body. That the church is an organic extension of Christ signifies both the unity with which the church functions and the care Christ shows for it, as one would care for one’s own body. The church is not a physical building but instead the community of believers called out together in Christ. The New Testament Greek word ekklesia for church signifies an active and communal assembly or group of people called out together for a specific purpose. You do well to join and participate richly in the life of the church.
Formation
Jesus Christ formed and founded the church as his unique body of believers. While other religious organizations existed before Christ’s advent, such as the Jewish Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus, their leaders did not identify their organizations as churches or as the body of their deity. Christ began the church by gathering followers around him. Christ then taught them how to live together while caring for one another. He showed them how to select leading disciples from among them. And he commissioned them to make disciples of all nations, sending his Spirit to indwell them to do so. At one point in his ministry, when his disciple Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus stated that on that rock of confession Christ would build his church. Peter indeed became a leader of the early church, particularly as to Jewish Christians and later as to the Catholic Church. The apostle Paul, by contrast, was an influential leader of the early church among Gentile, or non-Jewish, Christians. When Christians speak of the church, they may be referring either to the whole of all Christian churches, sometimes capitalized the Church, or to a local church. Appreciate that when you belong to a church, you are a part of Christ’s body.
Spread
The New Testament book the Acts of the Apostles describes the spread of the early church in the four decades between Christ’s resurrection and the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD. The book of Acts immediately follows the four gospel accounts and has the same physician author Luke who wrote the gospel account bearing his name. After Christ’s resurrection, a group of his followers led by the disciple Peter and including Christ’s brother James gathered in Jerusalem to organize and promote the church. They discussed and confirmed the teachings and beliefs, or doctrine, with which Jesus had left them around which to organize the church. The disciples also sent out missionaries with the teaching, to found, guide, and support local churches. Persecution of believers, including arrest and death by stoning, was common, requiring the disciples to act secretively. The apostle Paul was a leader among the persecutors until his conversion under an appearance of Christ. After a time of preparation, during which Paul met with the church leaders in Jerusalem, Paul traveled widely with other missionaries throughout the whole region, up into Asia Minor, across into Greece, and on to Rome, establishing and supporting churches, as the book of Acts describes. Paul’s letters, or epistles, in the New Testament are to churches and church leaders, showing the Spirit’s work among the church leaders and new believers. Appreciate the depth and richness of Christian church history, still informing the faith today.
History
The Christian church has a full and fascinating two-thousand-year history. Apostolic church fathers like Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch defended and developed doctrine, keeping the flame alive after the passing of the living witnesses to Christ. Towering figures like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus refined doctrine and preserved and transmitted texts for the fast-growing church, up to the 325 AD Council of Nicaea. The Roman emperor Constantine, already a convert to Christianity, convened the Council of Nicaea as the first to address the entire church. Not long after, Christianity became Rome’s state religion, influenced by the historic figures Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Jerome. The Orthodox branch of the Christian faith officially split from the Catholic Church in 1054 AD. The Reformation, marked by the monk Martin Luther’s 1517 AD publication of his Ninety-Five Theses, later divided the Protestant branch of the Christian faith from the Catholic Church. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism continue today to make up the three major branches of the Christian faith, each of which have distinct traditions, strains, or denominations within them. Pentecostals or Charismatics are far and away the largest Protestant denomination worldwide, followed by Anglicans, Baptists, United Churches, Lutherans, Methodists, and Reformed Churches including Presbyterians and Congregationalists. No matter your branch or tradition, draw deeply and richly from church history.
Organization
Local churches can differ in their organization depending on the branch, tradition, or denomination of the Christian faith to which they belong. A priest will generally lead a local Catholic church, supported by committees of laity and accountable up a clear hierarchical line of authority through regional bishops and cardinals to the pope in Rome. Protestant churches, by contrast, often have a lay elder board governing the local church and selecting a pastor commissioned by a denominational body responsible for doctrine. Protestant churches may thus be governed locally and influenced to a greater extent by laity, without substantial organizational hierarchy, although traditions and practices differ widely. Orthodox churches operate as a communion of autonomous local churches under bishops and synods, and so somewhere between the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and the non-hierarchical structure of Protestant churches. Get involved in the support and leadership of your local church.
Facilities
A church is a body of believers, not a building. But church facilities can express the traditions and commitments of the local body of believers that occupy them. Some churches have no permanent facility, instead borrowing or renting community centers to set up for each worship service. New churches often form that way until membership grows to the point of purchasing a permanent facility. Members contribute funds and labor to acquire and improve their church facility, sometimes with denominational support. How large, elaborate, and well-appointed a church facility is can depend on its history, size, funding, and denominational support, but also on its commitments of how best to honor Jesus Christ. The spectacular cathedrals of Europe, while expensive and often taking decades to fund and build, can foster an appropriate sense of awe for and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet many churches deliberately choose simple, even spartan facilities, to devote themselves, their efforts, and their funds to the Lord and his people in direct ways. Some churches deliberately choose facilities that do not look like traditional churches, in order to make new believers more comfortable and to welcome guests exploring the faith. Find a church where you are comfortable and respect how it reflects its devotion.
Choosing
Given Christianity’s essentially voluntary nature, as a volitional commitment to receive rebirth in Christ and follow his teachings, Christians generally choose their tradition and local church. You choose your church; your church doesn’t choose you. Family upbringing may heavily influence but will not determine the choice, as Christians move with some frequency from branch to branch and tradition to tradition, especially among Protestant denominations. Do not hesitate to embrace a new tradition to which Christ’s Spirit calls you. Christians also move from church to church within their chosen tradition, due to marriage, geographic moves for work, friendships, or personal preference. Local churches can differ widely in their formality or informality, warmth or serenitude, outward or inward looking, liturgical emphases, musical styles, children and youth programs, governance, and even their preaching and teaching, although centered on the Bible and Christ. Find a church of which you feel a part, to which God calls you. Visit churches until you feel at home. If you’re unsure of which churches to try, ask your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances for recommendations. Accompany them to their church to meet its leaders and members, and learn about its ministry and programs. And then support the church you join, with your active participation and devotion.
Attending
Church attendance patterns differ widely. Many churches hold a single Sunday morning service of from one to two or three hours in duration. Some churches hold two similar or identical back-to-back Sunday morning services to accommodate a larger membership in a smaller building. Other churches add Saturday evening or Sunday evening services for the same reason of accommodating a larger membership or to offer different service days, times, and styles, to attract and serve members and guests with different needs, preferences, and interests. Many churches add a weekday evening service, such as on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday night, to offer members additional time of worship, prayer, and teaching. Churches also frequently offer Bible studies, Sunday school classes, and other classes and seminars on Sunday mornings before, after, or between services, and on weekdays early in the morning before work, during the day, or in the evening after work, to instruct members and deepen and enrich the offerings. Members and guests may attend church services and classes every week or several times a week, or they may attend only periodically. Some individuals and families attend church only at Christmas and on Easter. Find a schedule that works well for you and your family for regular church attendance.
Community
Churches also differ in how they relate to their communities. Many churches are deeply involved in their communities, operating soup kitchens, homeless shelters, food pantries, clothes closets, care ministries, counseling services, and similar charitable services open to anyone in need. Churches may also offer special events, classes, or courses to the public, either around social and personal needs like parenting instruction, addiction issues, and money management, or recreational, social, and literary interests like book clubs, canoe and kayak clubs, and running, hiking, and biking clubs. Churches also often support private Christian schools, sometimes operate their own Christian school, and may support local public schools that permit their members’ involvement as volunteer mentors, coaches, and the like. Other churches are less involved in their communities, other than to offer worship and spiritual disciplines and devotions. Choose a church with the community involvement that you prefer, and help the church with its local ministry.
Needs
Church members can face issues and have needs. Churchgoers are not perfect. The church is instead a hospital for the imperfect and ailing. Many of the issues you see among the general population, including mental and physical illness, unemployment, business and financial losses, and family loss and strife, you may also find among individuals attending church. The church, though, strives to help those individuals with instruction, guidance, admonition, accountability, responsibility, resources, and other support. Churches equip their pastors, priests, and lay staff members and leaders with education, training, and resources to help struggling individuals, both members and non-members. Church members, many of whom may be doctors, lawyers, psychologists, counselors, educators, social workers, and other professionals who know how to help, can also be a vital referral network for recovery and support. Investigate your church’s support network for your issues or issues of others whom you wish to help. And let your church know of your willingness to help.
Opportunities
Churches offer abundant opportunities to get involved in the body’s life. If you are a singer or musician, the church band, choir, or orchestra may welcome your participation. If you are a chef or cook, your church may welcome your help planning and serving meals for members or the public. If you are a teacher, your church may welcome your instruction in Sunday school or other classes. If you are an accountant, lawyer, financial advisor, or other professional, your church may ask you to lead a seminar or be available for periodic private consultations. If you are an artist or designer, your church may welcome your creative services for its facility, artwork, newsletter, or website. If you are handy with repairs and the trades, your church may welcome your facility review, inspection, and support. Even if you have no special skill, your time and labor alone can make a big difference in the life of your church. No matter your skills, capacities, and interests, your church likely has abundant opportunities for you to participate. In doing so, you make connections, meet friends, improve your own skills, and support Christ’s body as it is your privilege to do.
Reflection
What do you know of church history? If you’re unfamiliar with it, try reading some of the early church fathers or a history of the early church to deepen your appreciation for the faith. If you don’t have a church home, what is keeping you from it? Is it time that you visit some churches to investigate a new church home? Do you have friends and acquaintances to whom you can turn for a recommendation of a new church home? How does your local church organize and govern itself? Would you be interested in participating in your church’s leadership? Do you have a skill to offer your church that might benefit the church or its members? Can you help your church with its community outreach in some way, even if only with your time and labor? Do you have an issue or need with which your church can help you, either through the church itself and its own programs or through a member’s services?
Key Points
The church is the body of Christ with Christ at the head.
Christ formed the church through his disciples and gave it his Spirit.
The church spread quickly in the decades after Christ’s resurrection.
The church has a long and rich history leading to its three branches.
Local churches may have lay boards supporting commissioned pastors.
Churches are bodies of believers, not buildings, which vary widely.
Choose a church to which God calls you, after visiting and learning.
Find a schedule of church services and programs fostering attendance.
Get involved in your church’s community-support activities.
Churches are a hospital for the struggling, offering substantial support.
Churches offer abundant opportunities to share your time and skill.