A BIBLICAL BLUEPRINT FOR GLOBAL CHURCHES
STATEMENT
Biblically faithful churches should look more alike than different regardless of cultural context because every church should obey the same Scriptures and glorify the same Lord Jesus. There are structures and characteristics prescribed by Scripture that apply to churches in every context. It is, therefore, crucial for churches not only to proclaim biblical doctrine but also order their congregational lives biblically in order to fulfill the Great Commission.
Article Written by Caleb Greggsen“Things work differently here.”
You don’t have to live cross-culturally for long before you hear something like this.
In my experience, it usually happens when you try to buy milk. We have a sour yogurt drink called ayran that looks just like milk and comes in bottles that look like milk bottles to me. But, friend, let me assure you, it does not taste like milk. And more confusing to me, given that I’m not from Canada, is that milk is often in a bag! I’ve lived in other places where it’s in a box. These differences confront new missionaries with the reality that they are in a different place. There is nothing like a mouthful of sour, salty yogurt when you want milk to make you face the harsh truth that you don’t even know how to buy milk in your new home country.
Cross-cultural life is full of these kinds of small humiliations. They regularly teach me that I don’t yet really know how things work. So how in the world do I have the hubris to not only sign the statement above but also the naivete to try to justify it in an article?
And yet, even though cultural contexts and specific situations vary across the globe, we can confidently assert that biblically faithful churches should resemble each other far more than they should look different from each other. Whatever differences exist from place to place, our Savior, our calling, and our Scriptures remain the same. Christians are spiritual people with the same spiritual origin and same spiritual directives; therefore, our lives ought to look increasingly alike. Though the features of our situations vary, Christians' baseline behaviors and beliefs should always reflect the same basic priorities. This is true not only in terms of our personal piety but also our corporate polity, our life together as well as our individual lives.
We Have The Same Chief
No matter where you are from, you are made a part of God’s people in the same way as every other Christian. There is no other name under heaven by which man may be saved (Acts 4:12). Every Christian church shares this common salvation. We have all called on the name of Jesus Christ to be saved.
The unity that Christians enjoy is built on our common salvation in Christ. The way that common salvation unites us isn’t just in providing a united destination (an eternity in heaven). It also gives us a single origin story. Whether we grew up in a Christian home or were the first Christian in our village, whether we were the profligate prodigal or the proud older son, we were all saved by repenting of our sin and believing in Jesus Christ as the one crucified for our salvation.
As universal and inclusive as Christianity is in including people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, it is also incredibly narrow: only repentant sinners who have put their faith in Jesus are saved.
I’m belaboring this point because we tend to notice the diversity of the global church far more than we notice our fundamental commonality. We should praise God for the beautiful array of peoples he has saved and is saving. But it is also crucial to remember that we have all been saved in the same way by the same Savior.
The church in every place has been formed out of the world by the same powerful gospel.
For all our cultural diversity, all Christians share important cultural foundations, which means all churches have common cultural values that will be expressed in their corporate life. By cultural foundations, I mean we share common beliefs (taught from the Bible) and hear the same stories (found in the Bible). These true, shared realities form and shape us as a people that value and prioritize the same things, no matter where we are.
All Christians must cultivate a life of repentance. Therefore, all biblically faithful churches must commend repentance and cultivate that practice in their members.
All Christians must endure in faith. Therefore, all biblically faithful churches must exhort Christians to gather with God’s people and encourage one another (Heb. 10:24-25).
All Christians have been forgiven. Therefore, all biblically faithful churches must war against fleshly vindictiveness and grow in forgiving our fellow believers (Matt. 18:1-14, 21-35).
All Christians expect to be raised on the last day. Therefore, all biblically faithful churches must teach the hope of the resurrection.
We could go on and on. How we are saved and what we are saved to shape our values and priorities. This means all churches, regardless of context, should be shaped by a gospel-infused culture that looks more like heaven than any earthly culture. Every church has a duty to be a joy-filled, sin-fighting, forgiving, encouraging, worshipful body of believers.
We Have The Same Charge
What is God’s calling for every Christian and every church? Our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3). Just as individual Christians are to be holy in every particular situation and role the Lord has called them, every church is called to be holy, a spiritual house dedicated to the Lord (1 Peter 2:5).
Every church is granted the keys of the kingdom to bind on earth what has been bound in heaven (Matt. 16,18). Because of that authorization, we as the church universal are commissioned to make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and teaching them to obey all Christ has taught us (Matt. 28).
Not only does every church have its origin in the same salvation, but we share the same call and the same cause—to lift high the name of Jesus.
We Have The Same Charter
We also have the same Scriptures. As the Westminster divines stated, “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”
That’s true everywhere. God has not left the church unequipped in one place and well-equipped in another. The Scriptures help all Christians everywhere to understand how they should live and glorify God.
Put simply, there is no cultural context where murder, hatred, adultery, or lust are suddenly godly. There is no time when the instruction for God’s people to be generous, gracious, and forgiving will expire.
So why would we think Scripture is sufficient for individual Christians' lives but insufficient for ordering the corporate life of a congregation?
One reason why ecclesiology - the doctrine of the church - gets so much pushback in missiological discussions is because the church is where we show whether we are willing to live according to what we say we believe. How we expect a church to order itself is a test of whether Christians should seek to obey Christ. Do we really believe that Christians must repent of their sins? If so, then we will obey Christ’s command to urge a brother in sin to repent, and we will obey his command to no longer call that man a brother if he refuses. Do we really believe that God’s Word is reliable? If so, then we will orient our corporate worship around His Word.
I remember discussing church discipline with three brothers from southern India. Two brothers said, “It’s a great thing; we see how good it is in American churches, but it could never work in India.” The third brother wisely asked them to list their reasons. The list was full of reasons like, “If you discipline a businessman, he will be angry because it will hurt his business,” “Indians don’t like to be rebuked,” and “People will gossip.” Those objections are real and, in my experience, true of Americans, too. But cultural instincts are not sacrosanct; they need to be evaluated by Scripture. Obedience to God’s Word is always counter-cultural in the kingdom of man.
The Same Chief, The Same Charge, The Same Charter; Therefore, The Same Polity
All biblical churches have the same salvation, the same calling,the same Spirit, and the same Scriptures. Therefore, on the whole, we function in the same way. If we have the same goal and the same “equipment” to accomplish that goal, then why would we assume that different churches would be ordered or structured in dramatically different ways?
You notice the differences in someone else’s kitchen because it is close enough to yours so you expect everything to be the same. If that person hangs their pots instead of storing them in the lowest cabinet, it may surprise you when you look for the pot. But you’re still both cooking with a pot. In the same way, Christians often take note of how different another church feels when they walk in. But in almost every case, they were still singing biblical songs, though with different melodic sensibilities. They are still praying, though for different lengths of time. They are still sitting under the preaching of God’s Word, though the preacher may have a different style or teach while seated at a table. They may meet in a home or under a tree instead of a worship center, but they still meet.
Likewise, every church is authorized to bind and loose on earth and be bound and loosed in heaven. Every church has the power to bring professing Christians into membership, release them to other churches, and discipline them when needed. No cultural difference can remove that command. No cultural differences can change our responsibility.
Around the world, there are iPhones in the pockets of all kinds of people. People type texts in different languages; they decorate their phones with wildly different cases and backgrounds. But at the end of the day, it’s the same operating system underneath.
Churches are like that. Underneath our surface-level differences is the same heavenly operating system. But more important than being alike is remembering why we’re so alike. As churches order their doctrine and corporate life according to God’s Word, the more each church will be fit to carry out our Lord’s purposes in this world.
We may not always be able to draw a straight line from a church getting an issue of governance right to the conversion of people around that church. But neither can we draw a straight line between eating vegetables and lifting heavier weights. Just like a person’s body, as a church grows in health, it has more strength and energy to do the work of the Great Commission.
Relevance of Biblical Ecclesiology
I’ve spent a lot of time arguing that Scripture should determine every biblical church’s structure and characteristics. But in real life, how does this conviction actually change anything?
Let me give a brief list of examples.
Churches in a city in Central Asia have been divided for almost a decade. Why? Because one church issued a letter of excommunication against a person who wasn’t even attending there and preemptively attacked any other church who did not shun this person from their gatherings. First of all, biblical church discipline should not shun but aim for restoration and repentance (Matt. 18:25, 1 Cor. 5:4). What’s more, one local church does not have the authority to mandate all other churches to abide by their decisions. These are issues of church governance, settled by Scripture.
Another example. A church in Northern Iraq didn’t care about clarifying either its membership or its process for establishing leaders. So, when a charismatic, engaging Filipino businessman arrived, the pastor quickly installed him as an elder. Almost immediately, he was puzzled when all the other Filipinos stopped showing up for church. He was puzzled, at least until the police arrested the man as a human trafficker. Sadly, no one stopped to ask the Filipinos about the man before he was made an elder. They knew he was a trafficker, and that’s why they left. This church violated the biblical principle that congregations are responsible for appointing or removing their leaders (cf. Gal. 1:6–9, 2 Tim. 4:3).
One final example. A missionary, desperate to expose others to the gospel, hired a non-Christian to lead Bible studies. He later described these Bible studies as churches, even though the man leading them denies the divinity of Christ. Why does he do this? Because at least people will hear the Word. But what does it mean for people to be converted? What does it mean for a gathering to be called a church if they do not worship the Son of God?
Notice how badly things go when biblical ecclesiology is absent. Sadly, this list could go on and on. Let’s stop learning these lessons the hard way and start engaging in missions with confidence that what Jesus instructs his churches to do is in fact good and right and effective in advancing his Great Commission.
Recommended Resources
David, C. Stephen, Covenanting with Christ’s Church: 9 Biblical Reasons Why You Should Commit to a Local Church (For the Truth: Lucknow, India, 2022)
Dever, Mark. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, Wheaton, 2021, 4th ed.)
Dunlop, Jamie & Dever, Mark. The Compelling Community (Crossway, Wheaton: 2015).
Greggsen, Caleb “Persecution and the Wisdom of Polity” 9Marks.org
Leeman, Jonathan. Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus (Crossway, Wheaton: 2012).
Mbewe, Conrad, God’s Design for the Church (Crossway, Wheaton, 2020).
