Earlier this week I finished reading a very useful little book called “Churches Partnering Together” by Chris Bruno and Matt Dirks. Sometimes you buy books because the title seems to promise help with an issue you are wrestling with; this was one of those times. I have a love/hate relationship with church partnerships. When they work they really work. They add value and punching power to the ministry of the local church. When they don’t work, they really, really don’t work. They distract, detract and diminish the ministry of the local church. Rarely do church partnerships have a neutral impact on those who participate in them.
Our church is a part of a dizzying and often overlapping network of partnerships. We belong to something called OFEM, which is a local partnership of Evangelical churches, we belong to The Georgian Bay Association which is the local grouping within our denomination, we are part of the CBOQ which is a multi-provincial denomination, which itself belongs to CBM which is a national body of Baptist partnering together for global missions. We’re also associated with The Gospel Coalition and Willow Creek Canada – two organizations not normally appearing in the same sentence! That is a lot of things to belong to and it doesn’t even scratch the surface. We could choke on all the other accronyms and short forms (CLRA, OADAC and EFC just to get you started) and we still wouldn’t exhaust the list. As a Lead Pastor of a local church I could literally spend 50 hours a week JUST BELONGING TO THINGS – obviously I need to think through how I prioritize and integrate these associations; more important still, I need to think through why and for what end I belong to ANYTHING beyond the local church. This article is me thinking out loud. This is me trying to resource my church in thinking through her mess of associations. This is me trying to help my fellow pastors (the CLRA crew) think through the same issue for themselves and for their churches.
First of all, I should probably note that while Churches Partnering Together did a great job of re-convincing me that partnership can enhance the glory of God and extend the reach of the local church they did not scratch my primary itch. There was very little content on when we should partner and when we should not and almost no help with the question of how much agreement is required to facilitate effective partnership. Those are the issues I have tried and failed to nail down in the past. Those are the issues that our church in particular is trying to figure out and this article seeks to fill that gap. Read Bruno and Dirks for the motivation to partner and then wrestle with me here about the nuts and bolts. I have some very practical questions: When is it wise to partner with other churches? How much agreement is required to work together? When is it better to withdraw or to decline? When does partnership begin to distract from the priority of the local church? This article deals with the first two questions: when should we partner and how much agreement is likely to be required. God willing and time permitting, other articles will follow.
When Should We Partner With Other Churches?
There is no direct counsel on this matter in Scripture. By comparing two passages in the Gospels we can establish a broad permission but beyond that we are find ourselves dealing in principle and inference. In Mark’s Gospel we read:
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. (Mark 9:38–40 ESV)
Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus as saying:
30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Matthew 12:30 ESV)
Putting these passages together it seems that we should be open to partnering with people who are “with Jesus” even if they are not “with us” on every particular issue. Check. But what sort of things should we be trying to do together? The Bible doesn’t say. The fact that the Bible doesn’t say, is in itself, a bit of a caution. Clearly the Bible does not consider extra-ecclesial partnerships to be absolutely necessary. If it did, we would expect guidelines and criteria. The Bible considers elders to be necessary, therefore we have criteria. When Paul and Barnabas founded churches they almost immediately appointed elders, we don’t see them giving direction for church partnerships. Therefore, the counsel of the Bible seems to be that partnerships should be considered with other true Christ followers if there is an obvious need and utility.
That appears to be the attitude adopted by our grandparents. In the first public statement of faith by our Baptist ancestors they said:
Chapter 26. Paragraph 15. In cases of difficulties or differences, either in point of doctrine or administration, wherein either the churches in general are concerned, or any one church, in their peace, union, and edification; or any member or members of any church are injured, in or by any proceedings in censures not agreeable to truth and order: it is according to the mind of Christ, that many churches holding communion together, do, by their messengers, meet to consider, and give their advice in or about that matter in difference, to be reported to all the churches concerned;29 howbeit these messengers assembled, are not entrusted with any church-power properly so called; or with any jurisdiction over the churches themselves, to exercise any censures either over any churches or persons; or to impose their determination on the churches or officers.30
29 Acts 15:2,4,6,22,23,25
30 2 Cor. 1:24; 1 John 4:1
Our grandparents looked at partnership as occasional, functional, voluntary, consultative and non-binding. They referred to this as “free will association”. The Bible is clear and our grandparents were clear that the local church is the primary unit of association within the Universal Body of Christ for the purposes of worship, fellowship and mission. What follows then, is a reflection upon what sort of occasional needs or opportunities might call for voluntary, functional and non-binding partnership between local churches.
1. We may want to partner with other churches when an obvious need exceeds our individual resources as a local body
There are things we should do that we can’t do by ourselves. Foreign missions comes to mind. When William Carey and Andrew Fuller began to pray about the cause of the nations outside the Gospel they were impressed by the fact that the need exceeded the reach of any of their local churches. In that awareness was born the original Baptist missionary society. As the story goes, Fuller stayed home to “hold the rope” while Carey went down the well bearing the light. While the story of Carey translating the Bible in India is well known and oft recited, the story of Fuller traveling the English countryside rallying support from Baptist churches is far less so. The fact is, the job required the commitment of both men and many churches beside. Mission is the most obvious reason for churches to partner together. Any time a task exceeds the grasp of a local church, churches may decide to band together in voluntary occasional partnership.
2. We may want to partner with other churches for mutual support, counsel and accountability
Even before Baptists began associating for mission they came together for mutual support, accountability and consultation. The wise pastor knows the limit of what he knows and seeks out the advise and counsel of his brethren. Churches too gain from fellowship with other churches and difficult issues like incorporation and legal liability seem to commend functional, occasional and voluntary association.
When And Why Should We Not Partner?
It should also be pointed out that not every reason to partner is a good one. The following bad reasons should be avoided:
1. We should not partner simply because we find the local church to be boring and lacking in opportunity
Many pastors secretly crave a wider audience for the display of their considerable gifts. The local church seems small and confining. Local church ministry seems mundane, pedestrian and ORDINARY. Extra ecclesial partnerships offer bigger crowds, sexier work and higher profile exposures. These are bad reasons to partner and should be avoided.
2. We should not partner out of habit or sense of duty only
Many partnerships seek to preserve themselves through frequent appeals to duty and historical tradition. Once an association feels it must resort to such tactics it has obviously outlived its utility and should be abandoned. There is no Biblical mandate for extra church partnerships therefore there can be no legitimate appeal to duty. If the association cannot demonstrate its function or utility it has no further right to exist.
How Much Agreement Is Required For Partnership?
There is no single answer to this question because there are so many different types of partnership. Experience and observation however, suggest that most forms of extra church partnership can be divided into three basic groups, each requiring a different level of Gospel agreement.
Level 1: Common Grace Partnerships
Christians can and should partner in pursuit of the common good and general human flourishing. Churches may wish to devote a certain percentage of their budget towards projects, either locally, nationally or globally that serve the common good. Disaster relief, clean water projects, child literacy and basic nutritional programs would be examples of these sorts of initiatives.
Very little Gospel agreement is needed to facilitate these programs. Some would argue that no agreement at all is required. I would think that Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Atheists could all agree that the children in a given town should know how to read and should eat a decent breakfast. Therefore, since God makes the rain fall on saint and sinner alike, there seems no reason why we cannot work together in pursuit of common benefit. This shows that we are “in the world” even if we are not truly of it.
Level 2: Gospel Support Projects
There is a certain type of Christian work that results specifically in praise to God in Christ:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 ESV)
Living right and doing good adorns the Gospel and shuts the mouths of our detractors.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:12 ESV)
With this in mind Christians have often attempted to support Gospel proclamation with good works. We may dig a well so as to speak with people about the living water that comes from Jesus Christ. We may support a clinic that performs optical surgery so that we can talk about the one who truly brings sight to the blind. We may operate a soup kitchen and so speak to people about the Bread of Life.
For this sort of partnership to truly support the Gospel, it seems reasonable to require that all potential partners agree on the content of the Gospel. How can we adorn what we do not agree upon? Baptists and Presbyterians may disagree on the nature of the church or the sequence of belief and baptism but in the best cases they will agree on the Gospel and can therefore partner in works that adorn.
Required Agreement:
1. The Apostles Creed
2. The authority of Scripture.
3. The substitutionary atonement of Christ.
4. Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone.
Level 3: Basal Functions
The basal functions of the church require almost total agreement as a foundation for partnership. In this category we would place church planting and leadership training. The same Baptists and Presbyterians who dug a well to adorn the Gospel in the example above could not plant a church together nor could they train pastors. They simply wouldn’t have the agreement necessary to address those basal functions. Church planting is best done by a single, large and healthy church or by a few churches who share near total agreement in theology and practical methodology. Likewise, pastor training is best done by healthy churches with veteran pastors (as was once the norm within Evangelicalism) or by a formal association of churches holding near uniform theological convictions.
These two tasks used to be the specific purview of denominations. However, denominations are now often the place of LEAST theological agreement and therefore they have been relegated to administrative and programmatic support of a largely non-theological nature.
Required Agreement:
1. The Apostles Creed
2. The authority of Scripture.
3. The substitutionary atonement of Christ.
4. Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone.
5. Soteriology. (How exactly people are saved)
6. Ecclesiology. (What exactly the church is and does)
7. Special ecclesiology (The offices of the church – who can hold them and what their function is. This is where the complementarian vs. egalitarian divide would have relevance.)
A quick survey of the list seems to suggest two things to me:
1. We do not presently have anywhere close to the level of agreement necessary to plant churches or train pastors within the family of CBOQ churches.
2. Planting churches and training pastors should almost certainly be ceded back to the local church as a primary duty. Seminaries need to be reconfigured and need to support rather than supplant the role of the local church.
Summary Conclusions:
My initial conclusions from this rough draft presentation are as follows:
1. We partner too often on the basis of too little agreement.
2. Local churches have abdicated core responsibilities to associations ill suited to handle them.
3. Smaller associations, more closely aligned on theological issues, should replace large scale historical partnerships that have outlived their utility.
4. Foreign missions remains the best reason to pursue formal association. Given that foreign missions involves church planting and pastor training, it should likely be tackled by smaller groups of churches enjoying more substantial theological agreement.
5. The purpose of consultation and fellowship should be pursued locally and with more theological liberty.
I look forward to the improvement of my ideas by means of your comments and suggestions.
SDG
Paul Carter