What Is the Biblical Way of "Doing" Church?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.

Here’s this week’s question: “Dear T. A. and Dave, In these days of seeker-sensitive churches and seeker-friendly mega churches, what is your perspective on what a biblical church ought to be?”

Tom: Dave, we get lots of letters with regard to people and their church. There’s dissatisfaction. Not just because of seeker friendly or seeker sensitive, but related to whether or not the churches exposes when presenting the scriptures, whether they’re into this fad or that fad and so on. And there are many mega churches that preach the Word, teach the Word, so we can’t complain about that. But does the Bible lay out the way we are to do church?

Dave: Well, I don’t think so Tom. Certainly no order of hymn singing, then announcements and a sermon. But it tells us the function I think of a church. The church is a place where believers come together to study the Word, to worship the Lord, and to break bread. That means to take the bread and the cup which Christ said you do this in remembrance of me. So the scripture says the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread. So it sounds as though every Sunday they took the bread and the cup in remembrance of Christ. Christ said, “This do in remembrance of me.”

They come together to be edified. Everything is to be done decently and in order, 1 Corinthians 14 says and it should be done unto edification. Actually gathering together of the saints as they’re called was mostly in homes, although it could be in a building, but they didn’t have that capability in those days. It speaks of the church which is in your house. And they came together not to proclaim the gospel, generally. I mean I’m not opposing that. If you can get your unsaved friends to come to church, okay well then let’s give them the gospel. But the main function of the church was edification for the believers and worship of the Lord. Exposition of the word of God. You see Paul preaching, now they accuse me of being long winded. Paul went on till midnight. Some guy fell out of a window and Paul raised him back to life and then he went on until what, sunrise I guess. So I have never spoken that long in one stretch. But it was for teaching and ministering and helping one another. But they went out into their neighborhoods. Their friend or their acquaintances. They won people to Christ out there and then they brought them in. They became part of the church.

Now if we went back to China for example today. Or the Soviet Union in previous days, or you went to Myanmar which used to be Burma, or some other places, or let’s say Muslim countries. You don’t bring unsaved people into the gathering of the saints. And it was that way in Roman times. Sometimes they had to meet in the catacombs. These were secret meetings. So you’re not advertising. You don’t put a big sign outside of the catacomb where you’re hiding out and say, “Oh Sunday evening we’ve got a gospel meeting, come on, bring in your friends.” You can’t trust these unsaved people. You don’t know, they may be spies, they’re going to betray you. So there were practical reason and there still are practical reason, but not only because of persecution, but I think practical reasons are we don’t want to just hear the gospel over and over and over, the simple gospel. Let’s get on, move on, as Hebrews 6 says. “Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works…” and so forth and so on. But let’s get some strong meat. Let’s get some edification and build the saints up and then let’s give the gospel to our friends and win them to Christ. And then we bring them in.

Tom: Right. Now Dave we know that whether a group meets in a home or whether they meet in a church that seats ten thousand, there can be problems on either side.

Dave: Of course.

Tom: So that organization…

Dave: Of course.

Tom: Or that structure’s not the answer. But I think one of the things you’re pointing out here and we’re seeing among the seeker sensitive, seeker friendly churches, they’ve got that reversed. They’re trying to bring the lost in and then alter their church, whether it’s at home or in a large building. Alter the structure so that they’re watering down the word of God. They’re not doing the things that are necessary for edifying, for discipling, for training people up, for encouraging maturity in the word of God. I think they’re dumbing it down somewhat. Not to offend the lost that come in. And I think that’s a problem.

Dave: Mmhmm, right. So it’s set up and structured and presented in order to somehow not offend the unsaved. Give them something that would be palatable for them and what’s happening to the Christians? Oh well, come on a Wednesday night, or come to our other classes and you’ll be edified. But I also hear from people who say no, you even go to that one, and they’re inviting their unsaved friends there too. So that is being dumbed down.

And then of course Tom, we’ve got entertainment for the young people. And well you attract them with entertainment; then you have to keep them with entertainment. I mean there is so much entertainment Tom. I’m not being a fanatic and I’m not trying to be critical, but think about it carefully. There is so much entertainment how much time do they spend in games, watching television, going to the movies, I mean the entertainment all day long and then when we go to the church and you know we, day after day, week after week and then when we go to church we’ve got to have entertainment too. Let’s get down to business. Let’s give them something worth living for. Give our young people something worth dying for. So that they really love the Lord and they’re willing to take up the cross and follow him and be true to him no matter what their friends say. This is what we need to build up in the church rather than watering it down to cater to unsaved people who would be coming in.