Keeping Preaching and the Ordinances Together, Part 1 May 23, 2010
What’s thedifference between a church and a gathering of random Christians? Could we callit “church” if we’re gathered with others in a small group? Is the youth groupsort of a little church? We could probably discuss these questions endlessly(and some people do!), but for the purpose of this column I want to use churchhistory as my reference point. Christians throughout history have used twoprimary marks to identify a true church: 1) biblical preaching and 2) properobservance of the ordinances (i.e., baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
AtPHBF, we want to keep preaching and the ordinances at the center of our lifetogether. By no means are these the sum total of our church life, but they arecentral. Why? Well, in addition to the prior paragraph about the marks of atrue church, we have the importance of the New Covenant which compels us. TheNew Covenant, you’ll remember, is God’s millennia-old promise to offer usforgiveness of sin, adoption into God’s family, and the indwelling of the HolySpirit. In short, it’s God’s promise of the gospel! Preaching is central to theNew Covenant because this offer from God is such incredibly good news, itdemands to be heralded (i.e., preached) to the ends of the earth. And theordinances are central to the New Covenant because they are the signs God hasgiven us to symbolize and reenact the gospel in our life together as acommunity of God’s people.
ByGod’s grace, both of these marks of the church have been prominent features inthe history of PHBF. But in the weeks to come, we want to pull them closertogether, making both of them regular elements of our worship service. Nextweek: more on why we’re moving the Lord’s Supper into the corporate worshipservice.