Church

We use the word church in a number of different ways. The word can refer to a building, the members of a congregation, worship services, a denomination, the church as an institution and the worldwide body of believers. It has also been used as a name by a rock group and by a chain of fast-food stores. In some parts of the world non-Christian religious groups call themselves churches in order to take advantage of tax breaks.

Even when we focus on the ways in which church members most often use the word—church as the full range of activities in a congregation—questions arise. Those activities vary greatly in character. They may include the congregation’s corporate worship, committees, small groups, programs, organizations, events and action groups. How can the one word encompass all these activities and their different constituencies?

What is its basic meaning? How did it come to have so many uses? What is the primary purpose of church? How can this be given the most effective contemporary expression? These are the main questions I will consider below. Other important issues are dealt with in related entries (see Authority, Church; Mission).

The Developing Meanings of Church over Time

The word church comes from the Greek word ekklēsia, from which we derive our word ecclesiastical. It was a common word in first-century Greek and meant simply “meeting” or “assembly.” It was used widely of all kinds of formal and informal gatherings, such as the regular meeting of citizens to discuss the affairs of a city, the gathering of an army or the spontaneous assembling of a crowd. The Hebrew word qahal was used in similar ways. We find several examples of this ordinary meaning of the word in the New Testament (Acts 19:39, 41).

The word ekklēsia, then, was not a religious term. It only gained this meaning by the attachment of other words to it, such as “of God” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1) and “in God the Father” and “in the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 1:1; 2 Thes. 1:1). In early Christian usage it referred basically to the regular gathering of God’s people in a particular place. Luther and other early translators understood this perfectly well when they rendered it “congregation,” that is, “those who come together.” It refers to the weekly coming together of believers—or to the people of God as regularly reconstituted through their meetings—rather than just the members of a church in a more abstract sense, including those who do not, or hardly ever, gather.

The word ekklēsia refers to both the smaller gatherings of believers, “the church that meets at their house” (Romans 16:5; see Church in the Home), and the larger gatherings of several such groups, “the whole church” (Romans 16:23). When the believers in several places are in view, the word is consistently used in the plural (Galatians 1:2, 22), again indicating that it is a local affair involving actual gatherings, not a generic term for believers everywhere.

Because of its basic meaning, ekklēsia is never used in the New Testament to refer to the worldwide church, though in some of the later writings it does refer to the heavenly church in which all believers also share. Just as the local church can exist at two levels, the church in the house and the larger congregation, so do congregations exist in two dimensions, on earth and in heaven. Each local church is a manifestation in time and place of the heavenly church to which all believers presently belong (Ephes. 1:22; Ephes. 3:10; Ephes. 5:22-30; Col. 1:18, 24). This is because we are raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places (Ephes. 2:6; Col. 3:1) as a result of his death and resurrection. Here again the sense of “gathering” is present.

As disputes arose in subsequent centuries about who were the most orthodox believers, some began to draw distinctions between those who were the true church and those who were not. This gradually led to the word being used of the people of God more generally rather than of those who regularly gathered and interacted with one another in particular places. As the idea of the catholic church emerged, a worldwide fellowship of true believers distinguished from other believers who did not have the full truth, the word church began to gain a universal sense.

When, in the fourth century, Christians gathered for worship began to move out of homes into special buildings constructed on the pattern of pagan basilicas or temples, the word began to refer to the buildings themselves. This association of the word church with a building placed the emphasis on where people met rather than on the quality of their fellowship with God and one another. As the church grew in political power, it became defined institutionally over against the state and so became representative of the sacred over against the secular arena. It is only in more recent times, with the development of the program-oriented church, that the word has been applied to the whole range of activities in which a congregation is engaged.

The Basic Marks of the Church

Down through the centuries various theologians have sought to determine what distinguishes a church from other forms of gathering. The medieval Catholic church emphasized two elements in particular. First was the celebration of the sacraments, among which were included marriage, ordination and the last rites as well as baptism and Communion. Second was the transmission of authority by the Spirit from the original apostles, especially Peter, through an unbroken line of bishops associated with the church at Rome. The medieval Catholic Church placed special importance on the ceremonial and hierarchical character of the church and viewed church tradition as playing a determining role.

During the Protestant Reformation this view of the church was challenged in part. The Reformers placed chief emphasis on preaching the Word of God, followed by celebration of the sacraments, which were reduced to those instituted by Jesus: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. While the Reformers exercised due care in the choosing of ministers to preside over these, they redefined the idea of apostolic succession as a preserving of biblical teaching in the church through a line of people raised up by the Spirit. The Protestant Reformation placed special importance on the homiletical and sacramental nature of church and gave Scripture more weight than tradition.

The so-called Anabaptist movement, or left wing of the Reformation, wanted to go further. To preaching of the Word and celebration of the sacraments, the Anabaptists added a third mark of the church. Since the church was a society of people in relationship, its members were responsible to both disciple and discipline one another more deeply into Christ. While excommunication had often been practiced in the ancient church, it had mostly functioned as a marker of who was in and out of reach of the church’s saving sacramental grace. The Anabaptists placed more emphasis on the responsibility of members to be accountable to one another for the quality of their Christian life. This view of the church stresses its voluntary and relational character and sets Scripture more fully against tradition.

The Pentecostal, and subsequent charismatic, movement has in effect added a further mark of the church, namely, exercising the gifts of the Spirit. The early Anabaptists had begun to move in this direction by opening up the preaching of the Word to a wider range of people in church than just the minister. But Pentecostals sought to reclaim the full range of spiritual gifts, including those, like healing and miracles, that are primarily nonverbal. In this view of the church, while preaching generally remains important, celebrating Communion tends to become secondary, and the presence of the Spirit is more central overall than the exposition of Scripture.

From a biblical point of view, there is something to be learned from each of these views. It is hard to deny a place among the marks of the church to sharing the Word of God or to the gifts of the Spirit, but it would be better to see these as all stemming from the same source, so that prophetic speaking and teaching by any member qualified in the Spirit are also regarded as charismatic gifts. It is also impossible to deny the role of love as involving both mutual discipling and mutual discipline, and perhaps we would do best to view the sacrament of Communion as the highest expression of this rather than as a different mark of the church. Consider the following as a concise, yet also complete, definition of the marks of the church: the church is truly present wherever the people of God associate to share and live by the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, both of these being centered on the Word of God and expressed in the sacrament of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Community as the Basic Purpose of Church

As outlined above, the word church acquired the range of meanings associated with it today. Does it really matter? Words are always changing their meanings, and surely we should feel free to employ them. While this is true, problems arise if the theological content attached to a particular use of the word is inappropriately transferred to the derived meaning or if that content is diminished because the original sense of the term is diffused.

For example, according to the New Testament, relationships between members of the church are to be governed by love (Romans 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 13:4-8; Ephes. 5:1-2; Col. 3:14). This word has a profound and concrete meaning when it refers to a group of people in close relationship who are regularly meeting together. That was the case in the early Christian communities, both at the smaller and larger level, for even the whole church was able to gather in a house. But when the word church is used of a building, of a huge number of people most of whom are unknown to one another or to the universal church scattered throughout the world, the meaning of love changes and weakens. This is compounded if the meaning of the word is determined by modern rather than biblical usage, stressing the role of emotions more than actions and mutual attraction rather than sacrificial service.

The same is true of other injunctions in the New Testament, such as “be kind and compassionate, . . . forgiving,” “be devoted to one another . . . honor one another,” “bear with each other” as well as “pray for each other” and “carry each other’s burdens” (Ephes. 4:32; Romans 12:10; Col. 3:13; James 5:16; Galatians 6:1), and of other dimensions of Spirit fruit, such as patience, gentleness, goodness and faithfulness (Galatians 5:22-23). According to the New Testament, the smaller and larger gatherings of Christians should embody, or incarnate, mutual Christlike and Spirit-transformed behavior.

We come to the same conclusions when we consider the link between instruction, or other gifts of the Spirit, and the church. It is clear from the New Testament that what happened in smaller ecclesial meetings involved a high degree of participation on the part of everyone present. In passages that have house churches in view, believers are encouraged to share the gifts of the Spirit with one another (Romans 12:6-8) and to “teach and admonish one another” (Col. 3:16). The limited size of such gatherings presented an opportunity for all believers to take part with their particular gift.

Participation by all believers was basically true of the larger church gathering also. Paul notes that when the whole church came together in Corinth “everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation” (1 Cor. 14:26). Though some members played a more prominent part in the meetings than others (1 Cor. 14:27-33), especially apostles or their associates when they were in the vicinity (2 Tim. 4:2), once again the relative size and—on occasions at least—leisurely length of the meetings (Acts 20:6-12) provided the opportunity for a large measure of mutual ministry to take place.

At the center of both gatherings for church was a common meal (Acts 2:46; 1 Cor. 11:20-34). As a full meal, not just a token, this was a highly social and joyous occasion, centered on the ongoing significance of Jesus’ sacrificial death and future return (1 Cor. 11:23-34). Perhaps the basic criterion determining whether a smaller unit in the congregation is a house church or just a small group, and the largest size of a congregation before it divides into two, is whether the members can eat and drink the Lord’s Supper regularly together.

All this suggests that the primary purpose of church is genuine community with God, one another and others who come in range, in which everyone has the opportunity to participate toward building up its common life, both in the church in the house and in the whole congregation. Understood this way, church is community, community in progress, interactive community that is building community among its people and extending community to others.

Church understood as “community” includes worship but is not exhausted by it, for worship is something that believers should be engaged in wherever they are and whatever they are doing during the whole of their lives (Romans 12:1-2). It involves mission to those who drift into the church (1 Cor. 14:24-25) and also generates, supports and monitors mission to those who remain outside (Acts 13:1-3; Acts 14:27-28; Phil. 4:18), but most of this is the largely independent work of some of its members or the overflow of members’ lives into their daily activities in the home, workplace or wider community, rather than something that takes place on church property or is organized by the church itself.

We would do best to reserve the word church for gatherings of the community to fellowship with God and one another and to use other terms for the additional meanings the word has acquired. For example, meetinghouse and church building are better terms for the place where Christians gather; denomination or network of churches, for wider groupings of congregations; worldwide people of God or community, for the so-called universal church; and religious and civic or political institutions, for what we refer to as church and state. Events, programs or action groups stemming from the congregation to reach out to the wider community have more to do with mission than with church and should be described accordingly. They join with a whole range of activities engaged in by Christians individually or with members of other congregations in their neighborhoods, workplaces or voluntary organizations and other interdenominational or ecumenical endeavors that have a similar intent.

Reshaping the Structures of Church

A more discriminating use of language would help prevent inadequate or even false notions of what the church should be doing and would encourage the church to focus on what is most essential. The prime aim of the church, as many are now beginning to say, is to actually be the church—that is, to become a counterculture kingdom community in the midst of a world that mostly has a set of different priorities and operates mostly by different values. The church should be a window through which anyone coming into contact with it can visualize, in advance of its full coming, the quality of life that characterizes the kingdom. They should be able to see something of the motivation of the kingdom revolving around giving and receiving in life, the relationships of the kingdom (people of different sexes, classes and races operating without regard to gender, class or racial differences), the economics of the kingdom (mutual sharing of goods) and the politics of the kingdom (decision-making to reach a common mind).

At the very least this view of the church emphasizes the necessity of small familylike groups in larger churches where people do not all know one another, so that the biblical injunctions can be lived out by subunits of the congregation. But the view also raises questions about the optimum size of a congregation. Once this grows larger than eighty or a hundred people, including children, it becomes impossible to put into practice these injunctions as a whole body of God’s people, especially if general gatherings are relatively formal and short and subgroups are highly compartmentalized by age, gender and interest. In contrast, once a home church gets too large, it multiplies into two groups, thus increasing the presence of groups of Christians in parts of the neighborhood or suburb where they can be in closer contact with the particular needs of the people around them.

Interestingly, most churches down through history have tended to be no larger, and often smaller, than this. Indeed, even in as churchgoing and size-oriented a country as the United States, the average-sized congregation is still around seventy-five adults plus children. Elsewhere it is often less. While this is generally regarded as a liability, if the purpose of church is properly understood, then a smaller size might be a genuine advantage (see Church, Small). It is worth taking note that adult Sunday-school classes in larger churches, if children were added to them, are often around a similar size.

The basic character of church also suggests that meetings of the congregation should be no larger than what enables everyone to have some knowledge of other members, including the children, so that there is a tangible experience of the wider community. Such a size also enables those whose gifts transcend the smaller home-church groups to have an opportunity to exercise them. Once the meeting of the congregation gets too big, there is room up front for only a few people to engage in ministry of this kind. An appropriately sized congregation also opens up the possibility of each of the home-church groups to contribute in some way, something that becomes impossible once numbers get too large. The advantage of dividing a congregation into two once it reaches a certain size is that it plants a church in another part of the town or city and so strengthens the presence of the church in particular districts or neighborhoods.

Alongside the regular, though not necessarily weekly, gathering of the whole congregation for fellowship with God and one another, other wider groupings of Christians belonging to it will take place. These need not be numerous but should certainly include a pastoral meeting for the core people in the home-church groups and congregational leaders, occasional meetings for prayer as particular needs arise and require attention, and perhaps other meetings for specific groups in the congregation (again not necessarily weekly) who would benefit from coming together across home-church boundaries.

Where a congregation has multiplied or decentralized into two or three congregations, there is still value in retaining a common link, periodically meeting together and undertaking certain things in common. But such a link becomes more like a minidenominational rather than congregational one. For example, its prime purpose should be to provide services and resources to the congregations and home churches. Meetings, which could be held in a rented space or sometimes in the open, would be held less often, monthly or quarterly or during the main festivals of the church year, and would have the character of celebrations and times for seminal instruction rather than developing community through the exercise of the gifts and fruit of the Spirit. Such centers need not be people- or capital-intensive, but they could provide training and education for members of the congregations and home churches which they are unable to supply themselves. This would take the pressure off such congregations from trying to provide the full range of services and ministries that they see present in larger churches but do not have the capacity to develop.

Further, a recognition of the difference between church and mission, along the lines suggested, would reduce the temptation for ecclesiastical structures to enter into time-consuming and cost-consuming territory that can best be occupied in other ways. For example, saying that “the church” should have a presence in business or in politics, or among the poor and marginalized, implies that this will be mainly carried out through the congregation or denomination. But by virtue of their daily occupations and voluntary work, Christians are already present in industry and politics and working among the poor and marginalized. While now and again it may be appropriate for a congregation or denomination to make a distinctive contribution in these or other areas, their main responsibility is to provide resources for these people and to encourage them to cooperate across congregational and denominational boundary lines so that resources are not fragmented but used most effectively.

What we have, then, whether we look at the Bible or at the challenges facing Christians today, is the possibility of reshaping the church in a way that frees it to fulfill its basic goal of becoming a kingdom community at both home-church and congregational level, as well as through ancillary meetings of equipping and commissioning all its people to extend the lines of the kingdom out into every aspect of society. The church is not merely an instrument to this end; it is an end in itself. But it is not an end for itself: it is an end for another end, the transforming of the lives, structures and culture of the surrounding world. Strangely, if the church focuses too much on mission, it runs the danger of losing community and all that centrally powers the mission. On the other hand, the more the church focuses on becoming a kingdom community, the more it tends to generate mission as its members’ lives overflow into the world. This is the paradox or mystery of the church, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

» See also: Church in the Home

» See also: Church, Small

» See also: Community

» See also: Denomination

» See also: Fellowship

» See also: Nondenominational

» See also: Small Groups

References and Resources

R. Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994); R. Banks and J. Banks, The Church Comes Home: Redesigning the Congregation for Community and Mission (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996); E. Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church (London: Lutterworth, 1952); V. Eller, The Outward Bound: Caravaning as the Style of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); C. N. Kraus, The Community of the Spirit: How the Church Is in the World (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1993); H. Küng, The Church (London: Search, 1968); L. Mead, The Once and Future Church: Re-inventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (Washington, D.C.: Alban Institute, 1991); J. Moltmann, The Open Church: Invitation to a Messianic Lifestyle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978); C. Smith, Going to the Root: Nine Proposals for Church Reform (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1992); E. Trueblood, The Company of the Committed: A Manual of Action for Every Christian (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1961).

—Robert Banks