You can listen to part 1 here.
In the first episode of this two-part series, Derek and Cliff discussed how a Christian can discern if they’ve found a true church. In this episode, they will discuss the distinguishing features of a healthy church.
Transcript
Derek: This episode of the With All Wisdom podcast is the second of a two-part series where we asked, what should a Christian look for in a church? In that first episode, we asked, how do we know if we found a true church? In this episode today, we are going to ask, what are the distinguishing features of a healthy church? Welcome back to With All Wisdom, where we are applying biblical truth to your everyday life. My name is Derek Brown. I am pastor and elder at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California. I’m also academic dean at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California. I am here again with Cliff McManis. He is pastor teacher at Creekside Bible Church, and he is also professor of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary. And we are here with part two of our little mini-series on how to look for a church or what should I look for in a church. And last time we were together, we talked about what constitutes a true church. A true church has to have the gospel. And then beyond that, you need to have a plurality of elders. You need to have the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. You need to have the preaching of the Word of God. But we also were leading into this next part of our series by saying that there are some marks of health that a person should be thinking about as they look for a church. And this reminds me, Cliff, of a comment that I’ve heard before, many times, you’ve heard it before, I know you have, that there’s no perfect church. And that comment is typically given in the context, you can tell that what the person is saying is that there’s no perfect church, so these kinds of conversations about what to look for in a church are, they’re not useful, they’re not necessary.
Cliff: Yes. As low and behold, it hasn’t even been seven days, and I had someone say that to me, to my face. Pastor Cliff, well, after all, no church is perfect. And I know that. And I’ve heard that countless times, no doubt you have as well as a pastor over the years. And it was said in a way meaning that, well, after all, there’s no perfect church. In other words, churches are all the same. It was another way of saying that. And I’m thinking, no, not all churches are the same. There are differences, and we mentioned some of those differences in our last podcast. And Jesus, who is the Lord of the church and head of the church, addressed the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation, chapter two and three. He addressed every single one of them very specifically, and he mentioned their strengths and their weaknesses. And one thing he didn’t say is that they’re all the same. He didn’t say, well, no church is perfect, so you guys are all good. He got really specific. As a matter of fact, two of those churches, he didn’t have anything negative to say at all. As a matter of fact, because they were obedient churches. The other five had things that he rebuked them for and then threatened them severely for. So, not all churches are equal. And I think that question is almost worthless, or that comment, well, after all, no church is perfect. That’s not the standard that God has laid out in the Bible for a church. You find a church that is obedient and does not compromise and honors everything that God has said that needs to be a part of a church.
Derek: Excellent. And so, we want to go through some of those marks or those qualities, and we’re going to do them in the form of a question so that you can, as you’re doing your own searching for a church, you can ask these questions about the church that you might be considering. And so, the first one, we want to start with this one. This one should be at the top. Beyond what we’ve already talked about, it’s a true church with the gospel. It has the preaching of the Word of God. It has pastoral leadership, and it’s practicing the ordinances. We want to ask this, does the church affirm inerrancy? Inerrancy simply refers to the nature of the Bible and that the Bible never errors. And everything that it teaches, everything that it touches upon, it speaks the truth. It is fully truthful, if you want to put it positively. It is entirely truthful. And the reason why we have to affirm this is because how a church sees and handles and views the Bible and understands the nature of the Bible and believes what it believes about the nature of the Bible will inevitably affect how that church stands on controversial theological topics, how that church stands on controversial cultural topics, the place that that church places the Bible in their discipleship, in their ministry. And inerrancy really is the key word because you will find churches in their doctrinal statement that say things that sound really good. We believe in the authority of the Bible. Or we believe in, this is one way of putting it historically, quote, the Bible is, quote, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. And you’re like, whoa, that sounds good. But that’s actually a historical way of speaking highly of the Bible without having to say inerrancy, without having to claim inerrancy. Because what that’s saying is that the Bible is infallible in specific areas, namely faith and practice. But when it comes to geography, when it comes to history, well, when it comes to science, well, the Bible might be wrong. So we don’t want to say inerrant, but we will say infallible. And so one of the key things to look for when people ask me this question, what should I look for in a church? And I kind of know where they’re coming from. And I know that they’ve got the other elements in place. I say, here’s the first thing to look for. Does the church affirm inerrancy? Cliff, do you have anything to say about the importance of inerrancy?
Cliff: Yeah, that’s a good place to start. Pastor Cliff, I’m looking for a church in Tennessee. Okay, what do I look for? Well, find a church that believes in the inerrancy of the word of God, meaning scripture never makes errors. What does that look like in a church? Listen very carefully to the leaders and the pastors and the preachers as they preach the Bible. Are they trying to qualify what it says, equivocate on what it says, take away from what it says at face value? So you have to be very careful, because there are even many churches and pastors that say they believe in inerrancy, but they really don’t. So that is absolutely foundational and an absolute priority,
Derek: You’re right. And historically, it’s just empirically verifiable that churches that give up on this element, give up on this important doctrine, they begin to veer off from historic Christian teaching. They begin to compromise on important theological, biblical, and social issues because they’re not grounded and rooted in that sure standard, which is the word of God.
Cliff: Yeah, and how have they compromised? It’s very subtle, little by little, and maybe some key phrases are where you think your church believes and stands by inerrancy and they don’t, but they’ll use phrases like you’ve already suggested, like, well, we believe in the word, well, the Bible’s the word of God, but they don’t want to say the word inerrancy. The Bible is authoritative. The Bible, like you said, it’s a standard of rule and faith. The Bible is infallible, and they’ll use all these phrases that make it sound, we abide by the word of God, we submit to the word of God, and all the while could very well be they actually don’t believe in inerrancy.
Derek: And inevitably that just creates problems, because if you are not certain that you have a standard that is always true, then you’re going to have to infuse your own thinking and teaching with human wisdom and second guess and question the Bible. So just super important, and we want our folks to hear this, we want the folks listening to hear that what should you look for? First, go to the doctrinal statement, see what they say about the nature of the Bible, listen to the preaching, how are they preaching, and how are they using Scripture. Okay, number two, is the church led by a plurality of qualified male elders? And the reason we want to touch on this again specifically is because you could be in a case, and I’ve been in churches like this, that was a true church, it had the gospel, had pastoral leadership, it had one pastor, we’re practicing the ordinances, preaching the word of God, but there was not a plurality of elders there. And I can say in my experience, and I think Scripture would affirm why this is the case, but in my experience, the churches that I’ve been in where there was not a plurality of elders and it was led by only one pastor, there was a lack of health, and there were problems that could have been avoided with a plurality. Scripture, the New Testament, teaches that there should be a plurality of male leaders in the church, not just one who is wielding all the control. And you can see God’s wisdom in why he would ordain this. When only one man leads and shepherds the body of Christ, a tendency towards authoritarianism, isolation, burnout, and narrow-sighted decision-making will be ever present. To have a team really helps in those issues. When multiple men share the burden of pastoral leadership, where each elder has equal authority, each pastor benefits from the collective wisdom of the team, any unhealthy thirst for power is checked by the other elders, and the hard work of shepherding is shared by more than one man. When the team consists of qualified men, this leadership structure translates immediately to corporate health. Any thoughts on a plurality of male elders in the local church, Cliff?
Cliff: My thought is a question. Who was the greatest church planter in the history of the world and probably the universe? I would say Jesus! And you look at Jesus, who planted the first church, He did. In Acts chapter 1, He planted the first church in Jerusalem with a plurality of qualified male elders, 12 of them. They were called the apostles. And they served literally as a team of shepherds and a plurality of elders in that first church. And that was the model ever since. And then as Paul and the other apostles went out, Paul did the exact same thing that Jesus did. Every time He planted a church, He’s starting that church plant with His team, a plurality of elders, starting the church. And then in Titus chapter 1, He’s commanding Titus and others, as I pointed to you, go into every city and appoint elders, a plurality of elders. He did the same thing in Acts 14. He went back to all the churches, him and Barnabas, and planting, it’s literally there, it says, a plurality of elders in every church. So, a plurality of elders in every city and in every church. That was Paul’s model. That was Jesus’ model.
Derek: Now, the word elder implies or can imply age, right? And I found myself, as I’ve helped people, you know, I’ll get emails, hey, Derek, what do you think of this church? And I’ll go have a look at it and I’ll look at the leadership. And there have been times when I looked at the leadership and they all look like in their late 20s, early 30s. And I don’t want to lay any extra biblical constraints on anybody, but do you think there’s any value in considering the average age of the elder team and the wisdom that comes along with age without making any hard and fast rules? Is there anything to consider in that area?
Cliff: Yeah, it’s a good question. We have, I think, 21 or 22 biblical qualifications for elders, so I don’t want to add any more because God knows what the qualifications are. But you’re right about elders. Elder refers to maturity and primarily spiritual maturity, and that comes with time. As a matter of fact, Paul doesn’t give an age in 1 Timothy 3 for qualifications, but elders, but he definitely says that an elder should not be a new believer or a green believer or an immature, non-seasoned believer. And that does play into this question that you’re getting at. So there is no age laid out in the New Testament as there was for priests and that kind of thing in the Old Testament, but the emphasis definitely is on spiritual maturity, and that does come with time.
Derek: Yeah, excellent. That’s really helpful. All right, question number three. Does the church prioritize expository preaching? And you might be wondering, what is expository preaching or how would a person define it? This is how we would define it. Expository preaching may be defined as preaching that relies fully on the text of Scripture for the substance and structure of the sermon. Expository preaching occurs when the pastor derives his message directly from the biblical text or a set of biblical texts, explains the meaning of those texts within their immediate and canonical context, and then applies that meaning to his people in their current setting. And the reason why we would affirm this type of preaching is because we believe it’s biblical, but also because it provides people a steady diet of God’s Word, particularly if you’re preaching through books of the Bible, just verse by verse, and breaking them up into reasonable chunks that your people can understand and digest, and that gives your people over time just a steady diet of God’s Word. It keeps you from infusing the preaching with your own ideas, which sometimes can be easy to do. If you’re just doing a topical thing, you just start thinking of things off the top of your head and you’re writing them down, and you’re going to go preach those things instead of having to work through the actual text of Scripture. So we would see the expository preaching where that’s happening in the way that we just described, because some people will define expository preaching, and I believe in a substandard way, and not following what we’ve said here in this definition. But where this is happening with qualified men at the helm, you’re going to have church health and church life. Cliff, what do you think about the place of expository preaching? Should we make a big deal out of this one?
Cliff: This is a huge deal, and I would state it this way. Who was the greatest expository preacher of Scripture in the history of the world, and maybe the universe?
Derek: I’m going to go with your first answer about church planning. I guess I’m going to go with Jesus.
Cliff: Jesus! That is the correct answer, Derek. Absolutely. You look at the way that Jesus handled Scripture, the Old Testament. He was a rabbi. He was an expository teacher and preacher, and people are confused about what this means, an expository preacher. One very well-known American pastor who wrote a book on the church and how a church should function, he advocated for expository preaching, and his definition was interesting because it was wrong. He said, expository preaching is simply going through the Bible verse by verse, and that’s all he said. He’s going verse by verse. That is not what expository preaching means. You can go verse by verse through passage and not be an expository preacher, because like this, ironically, this preacher would go through verse by verse, but he would never tell the meaning of the passage. He would read a verse and then springboard off of an idea that he had or a pet peeve that he had. And then when you’re all said and done, it’s like, wow, you didn’t even tell me the meaning of what Paul said. All I got was what you said. So, a simple definition of expository preaching, to add what you’ve already said, which was excellent, is expository comes from the word expose, and the goal is to expose the meaning of the text, like you said. Not what I think, not what the preacher thinks. What did Paul think? What did Moses think? What did Jesus mean in that passage? So, we expose it, we unveil it, we pull the meaning out of the text. We don’t foist our own opinions into the text. That’s expository, and you’re doing it. You do have to go verse by verse, though, at least in your study, because going verse by verse gives you the context, and you can’t get the legitimate meaning unless you have the immediate context. So, yeah, verse by verse is essential.
Derek: Excellent. And, you know, Paul talked about in 2 Corinthians 4, he said that he was not someone, and he and his associates were not those who peddled the word of God. And I think there’s a kind of peddling the word of God if we’re using it to foist our own ideas on people. We’re just using the word of God to just be a vehicle to get our own ideas out there rather than making the word of God what we’re trying to get out there and laboring to understand it. So, excellent, great words, Cliff. All right, number four, does the church prioritize evangelism? So, a church may possess the gospel, they may affirm inerrancy, they may enjoy the leadership of qualified elders, and they may even prioritize expository preaching. But if that church does not prioritize evangelism, its health will be stunted. So, the mission that Jesus gave us before he ascended into heaven was go and make disciples, and the first step of discipleship is evangelism, because you need Christ as your Savior before you can begin to obey him in terms of all the demands and requirements that he has. You need supernatural power through the Spirit that comes only by way of the gospel. So, the first step in discipleship is evangelism. And it’s like, you know, I grew up in Montana, we go on a lot of hikes, and when you come to a pond that has no outlet, then that pond is stagnant, it’s gross, it’s nasty, it stinks. But when you come to a body of water that’s got an inlet and an outlet, it’s healthy, it’s good, it doesn’t stink, it’s nice to look at. And I think it’s similar kind of thing in a church where there’s no outlet. You got all this, maybe you got great preacher, but there’s no outlet to others out of love for people’s souls, no prioritizing of evangelism, that church’s, their health is going to be stunted. And I remember we talked about this, you mentioned that there is a kind of a hint towards how a church prioritizes evangelism when you first visit there. Do you comment on that?
Cliff: Yeah, at the heart of evangelism, means going and talking to unbelievers, right? In order to do that, really, you have to love people. That’s part of evangelism. If you’re content with your own holy huddle and your own social club, and you don’t love people, you don’t love the lost, you’re not going to be motivated to go evangelize. And there are plenty of churches that are like that, completely inbred. This is our church, stay away. I’ve actually, unfortunately, been a part of those kind of churches where they didn’t love people, and as a result, they didn’t evangelize. So you can actually, when you first visit a church, you’re looking for a church, and you visit a few times, and you can just assess, step back, okay, were they loving towards me? Did they notice me as a visitor? Were they hospitable? Really basic and practical. Are they loving and inviting towards those who are new and strange in their midst? And you can kind of get a quick pulse on the heart of that church, and that will play into their evangelism. And also, this is a command from Jesus. This is basic to the church. What is the most important command that a general gives in a time of war? It’s the last command. What was the last command Jesus gave his church? Great commission. At the heart of that is evangelism.
Derek: Excellent. All right. Well, we want to get to our last point here before our time is up, and so we’re going to ask this last question. Does the church prioritize discipleship? And so we’ve just mentioned that evangelism is the first step in discipleship, and now we want to talk about specifically, does this church in its mission and its vision see the building up of that local body, the edification of believers, the teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has taught? Is that a priority? And that will be seen through their teaching. That will be seen in the venues that they provide in order for that to happen. You’ll have the large venues through the corporate teaching. There’ll be smaller venues, smaller groups of Bible study, one-on-one, one-on-three, whatever it might be, where the church is providing opportunities for this discipleship, this growth in spiritual maturity. And again, this is exactly what Jesus has commissioned us to do. And you could be in a church that is so focused on evangelism that, for example, the corporate gathering is no longer focused on the building up of the local believers in that congregation, but rather to reach out to believers who might be in their midst. And they don’t want to make it too tough to understand or too deep, and so they back off on the depth of preaching and so on. And they arrange the corporate service to be catered towards the unbeliever, and they are missing out on the discipleship, the large group of discipleship of the people there. And so you want to be aware of that, because in the long term, what that is going to do is that’s going to create a lack of health and vibrancy, because the people, the believers there will not be fed through that discipleship. Cliff, any last comments on that?
Cliff: Yeah, a question I frequently will ask fellow believers or seminary students, what is the Great Commission? And sometimes they’ll respond and say, it’s evangelism. Well, is that it? Yeah. Well, no, that’s not it. That’s superficial. That’s one-dimensional, just like you said. Actually, at the heart of the Great Commission is discipleship, making disciples. It begins with evangelism, and it continues with that one-on-one discipleship of grabbing the new believer by the hand, walking them through life the rest of their life, and you used the key word, it’s all about growth in every area of life, so that they can get to the point of being an obedient, mature Christian, and they themselves can become an evangelizing disciple-maker, replicating themselves.
Derek: Amen. So churches can come in every size and shape. They can be in the country, they can be in the city, they can be in a warehouse, they can be in a traditional church building. What matters is what we’ve just talked about, and it’s been a really edifying conversation. Cliff, I thank you for it, and we would encourage you, as you are listening, to go ahead and check out WithAllWisdom.org. We have even more resources there that will help you grow in your walk with the Lord Jesus, and even discerning things that we’ve talked about today, and so we encourage you to check that out, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
