What is a Church?
The starting point for answering the question must be a theological one, rather than any other. It would be easy to start with an experiential or even emotional perspective - and we might feel justified about such a beginning, because either the church may have been a source hurt in the past, or alternatively a point of transformation. The challenge is in not simply coming up with an answer that fits one perspective, generation, genre or denominational dogma."What is a church?" is therefore, fundamentally a theological question, but one with both temporal and eternal implications.
"What is Church?"
Generally people regard church as
• An established building in which Christians meet for worship - Architectural
• A group of Christians who gather for religious activities - Congregational
• The main Christian denomination of the country in which we live - Institutional
"What is a church?" rather than "What is the church?" is a better question to ask, and the answer itself, will impact the way in which we live. It concerns the nature of a particular Christian community, rather than the whole of Christians throughout the world or throughout the history of the Christian church, important as they are.
What should a church be?
This element moves us from a descriptive position - what a church is, to an evaluative one - what a church ought to be. We want to consider the intention behind the thought in God's mind, when he conceived the idea of "church", rather than simply assume the reality we have now is what he intended, because preference, prejudice and tradition all shape our understanding whether we know it or not.
People get their ideas of Church from:
1. Past experience of church.
• What a local church did or did not do for me
2. Past or prevailing culture, particularly the media.
• The Simpsons, portraying The First Church of Springfield with its loving but slightly sickly pastor, Rev. Timothy Lovejoy.
• The Vicar of Dibley, which is at times too accurate to be simply funny, although it really is - funny.
• The Da Vinci Code, with deluded believers and a manipulative leadership.
3. Current Affairs
• Church scandals or moral failures tend to make headlines, and deservedly so.
• The cases of child abuse in the Roman Catholic Church
• Stories of impropriety
• Yet occasionally there is some good news too
4. A projection of personal needs and preferences.
• This church will meet all my needs and fulfill all my dreams.
• This church fits my worldview and level of commitment.
5. Other types of institutions - expecting the church to operate like a similar organization/event.
• church like a concert - entertain me/amuse me
• church like a school - equip me/educate me
• church like a social club or interest group, with people "just like us" - accommodate me/include me
• church like a department store, with consumers - serve me/enrich me
• church like a hospital that will care for my needs and hurts - heal me/indulge me
The Bible reveals something of the nature of church through the imagery it uses:
• Body
• Bride
• Family
• Army
• Priesthood
• Temple
• Field
• New Community
There are alternatives of expression and context
• Mission led - refocusing saints
• Community led - reconfiguring society
• Worship led - re-imagining spirituality
• Teaching led - reasserting the story
Our challenge is in the fact that in both the Bible, and to some extent in life, the word "church" is used to describe a variety of settings. We can, and often do, make church in our own image. Our way of doing things, our values, our style of worship, meeting format, leadership structure, the role of women, all these things, and more, are given biblical certification and this is the way church was meant to be. Forever! Add to that our own preferences and we are already creating a new denomination with a membership of - one!
But -
Nowhere in the Bible is the place where Christians meet referred to as a "church." This word appears around 75 times in English Bibles, depending on the translation (around 110 times if you include the plural). In almost every instance "church" is a translation of the Greek ekklesia (from which we get the word ecclesiastical.) Never does ekklesia refer to a building in which people gathered, for worship or for any other purpose. For the most part, the first Christians met in private homes rather than in larger central venues, although one of the first "meetings" in Acts almost certainly took place within the confines of the Temple!
The way we use the word "church" in the English New Testaments as a translation for ekklesia, is misleading to say the least. But the fact is that no matter what connotation for the English word "church" you prefer, either the architectural one, the congregational one, or the institutional one: "church" does have some religious connotation. Use the word "church" and most people will think "religious entity."
This, however, was not the case for ekklesia in first-century Greek understanding and usage.
Ask where the ekklesia was, in the first-century A.D. and nobody outside the Christian community, would direct you to a religious building or gathering. Nobody would think the question had anything to do with with religion. An ekklesia wasn't anything like a church. The Greek language did have words for religious gatherings, words such as thiasos (a religious cult) or synagogue (the Jewish gathering), but ekkelsia was not one of these words.
The same is true for the use of the word ekklesia in the Greek translation of the Old Testament
This word appears about 100 times in the LXX, almost always translating the Hebrew term qahal.
Both words, ekklesia and qahal, have the basic meaning of "assembly" or "gathering." They can be used to describe a gathering for religious purposes, but the words themselves don't have religious connotations. Ekklesia needed something like "of the Lord", or some other qualification to make the Christian nature of the context, clear.
The Ordinary Meaning of Ekklesia
Almost all New Testament uses of ekklesia are distinctive. In comparison to secular Greek,
ekklesia is almost always used to denote a usual gathering of those who believe in Jesus.
In Acts of the Apostles, however, this term is used three times in a more ordinary sense.
Acts 19
• Paul is in Ephesus and a stir is created over the perceived insult to Artemis, the locally recognized deity, and also, in no small part, over the potential loss of income from the sale of statues and articles associated with her worship.
• There is a protest against this "new" teaching concerning the "Way", and the local artisans rush to the "assembly theatre" for justice, and protection of their trade
• The Greek word translated as "assembly" is ekklesia (Acts 19:32).
• The crowd is calmed and the leader concludes by saying, "If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly" - ennomoi ekklesiai, literally, the lawful ekklesia or assembly, - the official then "dismissed the assembly - ekklesian" (19:39/40).
This story reveals several things about the way the word ekklesia was used.
• In its simplest sense it meant "assembly" or "gathering" referring to some sort of meeting of people who had come together for a particular purpose. It was a common Greek word for a gathering of people.
• In Greek society, the ekklesia was the assembly of full citizens in a particular city. This is significant in that most residents were not full citizens at that time.
• Thus the ekklesia was rather like the modern day city council, in terms of its authority.
• It came to have a special meaning in reference to the assembly of the voting citizens of a city.
• In this sense it was the "regular assembly" referred to in Acts 19:39. But, as we saw in Acts 19:32 and 40, ekklesia could also be used to describe the spontaneous gathering of a crowd!
The root of the word ekklesia was derived from the verb ek-kaleo, which meant "to call people together" or "to summon" them. This is often used by some preachers as meaning "the called-out people," rather like the sentiments of Isaiah 52:11, which again some have used to convince the Christian community that we should have nothing to do with anything that is not "church" - which is the exact opposite of what Jesus intended for his new humanity. However, those writing the New Testament and those reading what was written would not have thought of ekklesia in this light. Originally, the word meant "assembly" without a hint of whether those who gathered had been called out or not. The first-century Greek speaker would not have thought of a religious gathering when hearing the word ekklesia. What gives the Christian ekklesia its distinctiveness is not the fact that it is an ekkelesia, but the fact that it is an ekklesia in God.
The Earliest Usage of Ekklesia in the New Testament
Paul's letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 1:1)
"Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the ekklesia of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"
Paul would have taught the Thessalonian Christians to regard themselves as a "gathered community" - an ekklesia, so they would know what he was referring to when using this term.
But by contrast, the phrase "ekklesia of the Thessalonians" (without the Christian designation - "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ") would also have an established, and commonly understood meaning, referring to the gathering of citizens to govern the city. In qualifying his use of the term, Paul limits any potential misunderstanding by the adding of "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The "in" element of the descriptor, denotes being under the authority of, being identified with, having existence because of, and therefore, Paul ensures that the church is identified with Christ - it cannot exist without him.
The Christians gathered in Thessalonica were not equivalent to the civic ekklesia - the city council - but they were intended to be an alternative assembly, an alternative community, that had its very roots and its life "in the God" and "in the Christ" in which they met.
Paul's letter to Galatians.
"The churches [ekklesiais] of Galatia" (1:2).
Paul's use of the plural is significant as it adds a further dimension to our use and understanding of church. In writing a letter to the Christians in the region of Galatia, he does not think of the church as being a group of people who would never physically meet together - such a concept would be an anathema to him. For Paul, church was a literal gathering of Christians, but here he also refers to a "group of gatherings", talking in terms of a number of "assemblies", which have common identity and purpose. All are in Christ, and exist in their localities as clearly defined gathered communities. It is just that there are a number of them, in the same region, all connected together, all under Christ.
Implications for our Understanding of Church
It would seem that the way early Christians used, and understood ekklesia, was both radical and a challenge to the prevailing powers. Jesus' first followers were not intended to overthrow the established governance (ekklesia) in their cities, but they were setting up an alternative society - a new community - which, as it grew, would indeed upset the traditional values of civic life throughout the Roman Empire. This new community was not going to be a transient religious encounter. It was, however falteringly presented, a cameo of the Kingdom of God. It was a foretaste of the new creation yet to come, and one into which God was pouring himself into and through.
Its distinctive social structure was a powerful statement of the vision to be later cast, of the completed Kingdom of God, found in Revelation 5:9 - "every tribe and tongue and people and nation."
• Jews and Gentiles, often separated in Roman society, shared life together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
• Slaves could also be full participants in the Christian gatherings, enjoying an equality in Christ with non-slaves, and even with their masters, which was denied them outside the church community.
• Women could actively participate in the gatherings as full members but were required - as indeed men were also - to separate themselves from the immoral behavior of the pagan cults.
• The theological truth that in Christ "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female" was lived out in the Christian assemblies (Galatians 3:28). They were, indeed, a kind of alternative society, one that implicitly rejected the domineering, separatist, and elitist values of the Roman world.
Colossians and Ephesians
Neither of these letters were addressed to an ekklesia, or to a group of ekklesiai, as is the case in Paul's letters to Corinth, the Galatians, and Thessalonica.
Colossians is addressed to "the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae" (Col 1:2), those who were part of the church in the city where his letters was read, Ephesians was sent to "the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus" (Eph 1:1). The greetings at the end of Colossians reflect the sort of tangible, actual-gathering quality of ekklesia that we have seen before in Paul. Greetings are sent to "Nympha and the ekklesia in her house" and to the "ekklesia of the Laodicieans" (4:15-16).
But Colossians 1 brings an additional emphasis on ekklesia.
15 [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (1:15-20)
I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (1:24)
In Ephesians 1
22 "And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."
Ephesians 3,
10 God reveals His wisdom "to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" "through the church"....
20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (3:20-21)
Ephesians 5, ekklesia shows up six times.
• Christ is "the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour" (5:23).
• The church "is subject to Christ" (5:24).
• Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her" (5:25).
• Christ seeks "to present the church to himself in splendour" (5:27).
• He nourishes and tenderly cares" for the church (5:29).
• The unity between husband and wife, so it is with Christ and the church, something Paul refers to as "a great mystery" (5:32).
The meaning of ekklesia in Colossians and Ephesians has clearly moved far beyond the literal gathering of Christians in some location. Now the ekklesia is the body of which Christ is the head.
• It appears to exist as a reality transcending space and time, and linking it to the eternal nature of God's purposes
• It encompasses far more than one single gathering of believers, but still has permanence in time, like an actual body.
• Paul seems to envision some sort of "gathering," now used metaphorically rather than literally, of all Christians on earth and in heaven.
• It keeps this inextricable relational link between Christ as the Head of the church and the Body that draws its life and reality from him, between the Bridegroom and the Bride, the King and his Kingdom.
There are therefore a number of ways in which the word ekklesia/"church" is used. From the single gathering - even two or three in a house - through groups of congregations in a city or region - to the whole company of Christ's followers, past present and future, until Christ returns, all come under the same descriptor. The uniqueness of the Body of Christ is found in the fact that it is expressing not simply the values of Christ but the person of Christ, himself. It deals not only with his ideals but his immanence in equal measure.
This presence is found both in our intimacy with him and in our involvement with the world he continues to sustain. We are not only an expression of his lovingkindness (hesed in Hebrew) to a broken world, but we do so in such a way that the world is exposed to the presence of Christ. As Jesus himself taught, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." (Matt 5:16)
Acts 2:42-45 describes the resulting action - its involvement - that flowed from the church being such a gathered community. Togetherness is a word which features heavily in the early chapters of Acts (1:14, 2:1, 2:14, 2:44, 2:46), and the meeting together, and the meeting of needs, both inside and outside the gathered community were significant elements, and challenges, in the first expression of "church". They were a serving and generous community, not primarily as a means of evangelism but as an expression of incarnation; if you like, the rationale was to "act like God", in the purest sense of those words.
The church met to express its intimacy with Christ though corporate worship and engagement with the Scriptures, through those gifted to teach - explain and apply - the words of God. (2:46-47). Communion and prayer both nourished and strengthened the vitality of the transforming relationship with Christ that had birthed this new humanity. The result was not a schizophrenic faith separating life within the church and life outside it. There was a singularity of understanding about the life they had embarked on and those observing this new community also perceived the fact that it was continuing in the same manner as the Jesus they claimed as the Lord and Head of the Church.
• In keeping with its Christ centredness, worship, the Scriptures and prayer were at the core.
• In keeping with its commitment to the commission its Founder had given, living the life of discipleship was not an option but a privilege, and one that encompassed the 24/7, holistic, global nature of reality.
• In keeping with its value of serving, it is fully engaged in meeting the genuine needs of the community, both inside and outside, incarnating what the extravagant and generous Kingdom of God looks like, because that is what the King, himself, is like.
• In keeping with its gatheredness, it was a place that could be found and touched. It could both embrace and enfold, being tangible in the life it shared
• In keeping with its essential community nature, like the God who birthed it, relationship was its hallmark, fostering a sense of identity and belonging
• And all of this was intentional - it was a conscious engagement with and commitment to living as a disciple of Christ in the journey of daily denying yourself, taking up the Cross and following in the footsteps of Jesus.
We started out to clarify what a church is, as opposed to what the church is. We needed to be practical and find something that would work, anytime, any place, anywhere. Therefore we can say that at its base level, a church is an intentional, Christ-centred, discipling, serving, gathered community, irrespective of genre, culture, denominational dogma, or its place in time and space.
Most simply, the Church looks like Jesus!
Wes Sutton 2009
Acknowledgements:
In keeping with the axiom of not reinventing the wheel, I would like to acknowledge the considerable theological talents of the following people in relations to this paper, and whose writings and conversations form the bedrock of this document.
- Roger T Forster
- Steve Chalke
- Greg Boyd
- Mark Roberts
- Jennie Orange