Polity Defined

 

ELC: Jesus’s Discipleship Program
by Joe Percy 

The Priesthood of All Believers and Why the New Covenant Requires Congregationalism
by Stephen Wellum 

Why Baptism Must Precede Membership and the Table
by Nate Akin 

A Pastor Is an Elder Is a Bishop
by Ben Robin 

Pastor: Office or Gift?
by Jonathan Leeman 

What’s the Difference Between Elder-Ruled and Elder-Led?
by Sam Koo 

Congregationalism Is Not Democracy
by Phil Newton 

Why Presbyterian Polity Is Biblical
by Fred Greco 

Why Anglican Polity Is Biblical
by Lee Gatiss 

 

Polity Applied

 

Polity & Prudence
by Michael Lawrence  

Pastor, Teach Your Church about Being the Church
by Jonathan Leeman 

Dignify the Work of Membership
by Sam Emadi 

Introducing Congregationalism in Membership Classes and Interviews
by Branton Burleson 

Church Staff Belong in Two Buckets: Elder-Qualified or Deacon-Qualified
by Jonathan Leeman 

The Role of Staff in an Elder-Led Congregational Church
by Matt Rogers  

Moving from Solo Pastor to Elder-Led Congregationalism
by Rich Shaddon 

Confessional and Congregational: Why a Separate Statement of Faith for Elders Undermines Both
by John Sarver 

 

Polity and Members Meetings

 

Why Do We Need Members Meetings?
by Bret Capranica 

Why Members Voting on Members Is Their Most Important Job
by Brian Parks  

What If My Congregation Isn’t Ready to Vote?
by Phil Newton 

What If My Congregation Isn’t Ready to Vote?, Part 2
by Nik Lingle 

How Much Do the Elders of Our Church Share about Difficult Issues in Members Meetings?
by Omar Johnson, Garrett Kell, and Jeff Lacine 

How to Diffuse Hostile Members Meetings
by Allen Duty  

 

Polity and Its Fruit

 

Does Pragmatism Tend Toward Liberalism?
by Taylor Hartley 

What Does Polity Have to Do with Church Planting?
by Ben Lacey 

How a Good Polity Helps a Church’s Evangelism
by Dave Russell 

How Congregationalism Combats Consumerism
by Matt Moore 

How Bad Polity Can Undermine Christianity: A Theological Perspective
by Robert Kane 

 

Polity in Other Contexts

 

Navigating Leadership and Authority in African Churches
by Tommie van der Walt 

Challenges to Elder-Led Congregationalism in an Asian Context
by Eugene Low 

Challenges to Elder-Led Congregationalism in a Latin American Context
by David Adams 

 

Editor’s Note:

“Church polity has become the absorbing topic of the Christian world.” So remarked pastor theologian J. L. Reynolds in 1846. Not much to do in the evenings of 1846, I guess.

Yet it should absorb us more than it does, particularly as church leaders. That’s why we’ve devoted an issue of Church Matters to the topic. Polity is not the gospel, but it’s an outgrowth of the gospel, given by God to protect and promote the gospel, particularly over time.

Here are five reasons, pastor, you should care about church polity.

 

1. Polity Is Biblical

 

Making disciples involves “teaching them to obey everything” that Jesus commanded, including commands like these:

• “let him be to you as a Gentile and or tax collector” (Matt. 18:17);
• “go . . . baptizing them in the name of . . .” (Matt. 28:19);
• “When you gather in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . in the power of the Lord Jesus, hand him over . . .” (1 Cor. 5:4–5);
• “an overseer must be . . .” (1 Tim. 3:2);
• “obey your leaders . . .” (Heb. 13:17);
• “let us consider how to stir up one another . . . not neglecting to meet one another” (Heb. 10:24–25);
• “when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (1 Cor. 11:33).

The Holy Spirit has seen fit to reveal his will for how Christians should live together as churches, including what we do when we gather, how we organize ourselves, who should lead, what the ordinances mean, and so forth. The Bible doesn’t answer every question we might ask about organizing our churches, but it says the things we need, the important things, the essential things, the things that every church on the planet should have.

We should care about polity because: God said.

 

2. Polity Is Gospel Ethics

 

Look again at the list of verses mentioned above. Notice anything about them grammatically? They’re all imperatives. Churches build their governance structures on the imperatives and authorizations of Jesus and the apostles. Meaning, polity is ethics.

Yet here comes my longest and maybe most important point: polity is not just ethics, it’s gospel ethics.

Let me back up. It’s easy to view church government as an arbitrary “add-on” to the Christian life, like the scaffolding leaning against the outside of a historic building used for deep cleaning and restoration purposes. The scaffolding surrounds the building but is not a part of the building. It’s detachable. Isn’t that what the relationship between polity and Christ’s gospel people, the church, is like?

No. Our polity grows out of the gospel. Or let me put it like this: If you’re working through an old multiple-choice analogy section for the SATs (my teens tell me the SATs have dropped the analogy section) and you’re asked to pick the right analogy for gospel: polity, don’t pick building: scaffolding. Instead, pick seed: flower. Polity is to the gospel, what a flower is to the seed. The ethics of policy grow out of the seed of the gospel. The institution, I dare say, grows organically.

Most Christians in healthy churches already understand the seed: flower analogy for our individual gospel obedience. Faith shows itself in works. Gospel belief leads to gospel obedience. We get that. Now get this: polity, in the same way, is our social obedience. It’s what Christ requires of us corporately—in our life together.

And the corporate assignments aren’t arbitrary. They really do grow out of the gospel. How?

Let me back up a second time with a broader lesson: the beginning point of any organization’s polity is not who the leaders are, necessarily. Rather, the beginning and most crucial element in any organization’s polity is who makes the group a group, which includes declaring who the members are. The decision about whether a group exists and who its members are—far and away—is the starting point and the foundation for the rest, whether we’re talking about a football team, a parent-teacher association, a business, a church, or a nation. For instance, the beginning of the American polity is not the president or congress. It’s the “consent of the governed” of the Declaration of Independence and the “we the people” of the U.S. Constitution. The people make the nation what the nation is, not the elected officeholders.

Now back to the church: who has the authority to make a church a church and individual members of it?

To answer, we have to start with the new covenant promise that “no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (Jer. 31:34). That means, no longer will a special class of priests mediate membership and right standing among God’s people. We’re all priests now. Therefore, membership and right standing among God’s people must be “by mutual agreement,” as the First London Baptist Confession puts it. Membership and the existence of a visible church occurs when “two of you agree” and “where two or three are gathered in my name,” as Jesus puts it (Matt. 18:19–20). Two or three priests (gospel believers) must agree with one another before a church can exist.

The white-hot center of church authority is not at the Vatican, the general assembly, a presbytery, or the office of senior pastor. It’s in two Christians agreeing with one another. Drop two Christians down on a desert island with a Bible, and they can form a church. Stare at that word “agree” in Matthew 18:19. That agreement is the key-wielding (verse 18) judicial glue (verse 16—with Deuteronomy 19:15 in the background) that binds a church together.

Who makes a church a church? It’s two or three Christians (read: new covenant priests) agreeing on what the gospel is, agreeing they will regularly gather to proclaim it, and agreeing to affirm one another’s professions of gospel faith through the ordinances. They can do this on a desert island. They can do this in downtown Washington, DC. The second that someone says bishops or presbyteries or elders make a church a church, you’ve gone back to the old covenant and established a separate line of priests. You’ve gone against the new covenant gospel, which makes us all priests. Galatians 1:6–9 and 1 Corinthians 5 tell the same story.

The New Testament is remarkable. Jesus saved us with his gospel and by that same gospel he gives us a job to do: be priests. We Christians then undertake that job of priest by gathering together and affirming one another in the gospel through the keys of the kingdom and the ordinances. Like this:

Salvation –> creates an office (priest) –> that’s given expression by becoming a key-wielding church member

Again, our gospel polity grows out of our gospel salvation.

What about deacons? How do they grow out of the gospel? Deacons display the service at the heart of salvation. To transliterate the original Greek, Jesus did not come to be deaconed, but to deacon and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

What about elders? How do they grow out of the gospel? They teach and lead us according to the gospel, but in another sense, elders don’t grow out of the gospel. Their existence testifies to our already/not yet eschatology and the fact that we’re not perfected priests, as we will be one day. Priest is our status and job now, but indwelling sin remains. Therefore, Jesus has given the gifts of men who are “above reproach” and “able to teach” who can lead us into greater conformity with the gospel. Then, when Jesus comes back and we’re perfected, they’ll be out of a job.

What does the gospel look like in my life individually? It looks like me striving for holiness. What does the gospel look like in our life corporately? It looks like affirming one another as fellow church members through the ordinances, helping one another to fight for holiness inside that membership, exercising church discipline when occasion requires, honoring the example of our deacons, and submitting to the example of our elders.

We should care about polity because: the gospel makes demands on our life together as churches.

 

3. Polity Creates the Local Church

 

In Going Public, Bobby Jamieson writes, “A church is born when gospel people form a gospel polity.” Polity makes the invisible visible.

The bigger picture here is, Protestant churches are formed in two steps:

Step one. God the Spirit works through the preached Word to give life and faith, and the Spirit’s work accompanies God’s preached Word. God’s Word creates God’s people. The trouble is these people remain invisible and unrecognized. You cannot see Holy Spirit-belief in someone’s heart. Are you a Christian? Am I? Are they? A second step of public recognition is therefore necessary.

Step two. Gospel believers recognize one another by organizing as a church. Faith adopts an order. By mutual agreement, they organize and mark themselves off as Christ’s people through the ordinances. Like this:

Step one                                              Step two

New covenant people             –>        Public recognition

Invisible church                      –>        Visible church

Faith                                        –>        Order / Polity

Preaching the gospel               –>         Practicing ordinances

The existence of a church begins with the gospel, but then those gospel believers must organize or polity-ize.

We should care about polity because: it creates a church.

 

4. Polity Is Discipleship

 

If polity is gospel ethics, then learning to live according to those ethics is a crucial part of our gospel discipleship. Which means, polity is also discipleship.

Think again of the Great Commission. We make disciples by baptizing and teaching our churches to obey everything Jesus commanded. Part of what Jesus commanded is how to become a church, govern a church, and live as a church. As such, learning to live inside of those polity structures is how we grow in discipleship.

Do you want a healthy church filled with maturing and healthy Christians? Practice meaningful membership and church discipline. Raise up biblical elders and deacons and equip them to do their work.

We should care about polity because: it’s crucial to our discipleship.

 

5. Polity Is Witness

 

Making the church visible is essential for creating the church’s witness. To be sure, I can become a Christian, live a changed life, and share the gospel all by myself. But I won’t be able to do those things very well. My faith and witness will remain weak. I need other Christians to be strong.

Not only that, I need other Christians to testify to a new community, a new people, a holy nation, a heavenly culture. Think of how Jesus explained that it was our love for one another that will show people we’re his disciples. How will we do that? By loving one another as he has loved us—with a forgiving and forbearing love (John 13:34–35). It’s in the life of a visible binding and loosing church that we display the gospel.

We should care about polity because: it serves our evangelism and witness.

 

This Issue of Church Matters

 

For these five reasons and more, we’re pushing polity in this issue of Church Matters. Most of the articles point toward elder-led congregationalism, like this introduction does. Yet we felt it was fair to have a Presbyterian brother and an Anglican brother make the case for their perspectives.

We’ve also tackled the topic of polity from a host of angles that we hope will be helpful to you as a pastor or church member—from defining it, to applying it, to considering its fruit and how it works in members meetings, to examining it in other contexts.

A good opening story for the entire issue appears in Dave Russell’s article on polity and evangelism. A fellow pastor asks Dave how his church has so many baptisms. Dave’s answer surprised the fellow pastor: “Church membership.” Wait, what? Dave’s explanation and his article as a whole is as good a place as any to jump in.

—Jonathan Leeman