What Does The Bible Require of a Church?

An alum­na of my min­istry recent­ly sent me an email ask­ing what the Bib­li­cal require­ments of a church were. I thought about it for a bit, and this is what I came up with. I’m sure the list of require­ments that I have below is incom­plete, and I wel­come sug­ges­tions for improve­ment.

But if you, like my for­mer stu­dent, are look­ing for a church home then med­i­tate on these points.

Here’s the email I sent her.

What does the Bible require of a church? Prob­a­bly not the things you expect. The Bible doesn’t require that a church meets on Sun­day morn­ing (although it does set that as the pat­tern: Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2), nor does it require that a ser­mon be the cen­ter­piece of the meet­ing (although that is cer­tain­ly one way of ful­fill­ing the cri­te­ria of Bib­li­cal teach­ing below).

The most impor­tant thing that God requires of a church is that it be built upon the con­fes­sion of Jesus as God’s Son and Christ (Matthew 16:16–18; 1 Cor 3:10–11). What this means prac­ti­cal­ly is that Christ is the cen­ter of the church and is the focus of its activ­i­ties.

The church should be engaged in per­suad­ing unbe­liev­ers to become dis­ci­ples of Jesus (Matthew 28:18–20; 2 Tim­o­thy 2:2; 2 Tim­o­thy 4:5), which the Great Com­mis­sion defines as bap­tiz­ing them and teach­ing them to obey Christ. Dis­ci­ple­mak­ing also includes tak­ing sin seri­ous­ly and dis­ci­plin­ing impen­i­tent believ­ers (Matthew 18:15–20; 1 Corinthi­ans 5:1–13; 1 Tim­o­thy 5:19–20; Titus 3:9–11).

The church should meet reg­u­lar­ly and the meet­ings should be encour­ag­ing (Hebrews 10:24–25). The encour­age­ment should not come just from the min­istry lead­ers – the com­mu­ni­ty as a whole should be one that strength­ens you. Here is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive list of pas­sages describ­ing how those in the church ought to treat one anoth­er.

• Greet one anoth­er 2 Corinthi­ans 13:12
• Show hos­pi­tal­i­ty to one anoth­er 1 Peter 4:9
• Hon­or one anoth­er Romans 12:10
• Live in har­mo­ny with one anoth­er Romans 12:16
• Serve one anoth­er Gala­tians 5:13–14
• Com­fort one anoth­er 2 Corinthi­ans 1:3–4
• Encour­age one anoth­er Hebrews 3:12–13
• Teach and admon­ish one anoth­er Colos­sians 3:16
• Be for­bear­ing with one anoth­er Eph­esians 4:1–3
• For­give one anoth­er Colos­sians 3:13
• Con­fess sin to one anoth­er James 5:16
• Bear one another’s bur­dens Gala­tians 6:2
• Love one anoth­er 1st John 4:7–21
• Search Biblegateway.com for the phrase “one anoth­er” to find more.

There should be singing moti­vat­ed by grat­i­tude to God (Colos­sians 3:16; Eph­esians 5:19–20). Grat­i­tude for who God is and what God has done (both on the cross and in our lives) is what I believe is in mind here. As part of its wor­ship, church­es should also cel­e­brate com­mu­nion on a reg­u­lar basis (1 Corinthi­ans 11:17–34).

The church should also be a com­mu­ni­ty devot­ed to prayer (1 Tim­o­thy 2:8; Eph­esians 6:18). We must remem­ber that when Jesus taught his dis­ci­ples to pray, he taught them to pray togeth­er (it is, after all, “our” Father not “my” father – Matthew 6:9). These sorts of prayers ought to be empha­sized:

• The ele­ments of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13, Luke 11:1–4) should always be cen­tral: for God to be glo­ri­fied, for His will to be done, for pro­vi­sion, for for­give­ness, and for holi­ness.
• For effec­tive evan­ge­lism (Colos­sians 4:2–4, Eph­esians 6:19–20). Note the empha­sis of the prayer: it is not for the lost to be saved so much as for us to be bold and wise wit­ness­es.
• For gov­ern­ment lead­ers to not inter­fere with our faith, espe­cial­ly not our abil­i­ty to evan­ge­lize (1 Tim­o­thy 2:1–2).
• For the needs of the church (Eph­esians 6:18). The prayers of the apos­tles serve as excel­lent exam­ples of the sorts of prayers one could offer on behalf of the church (Rom 15:5–6, 13; Eph 1:17–19; Eph 3:16–19; Phi 1:9–11; Col 1:9–12; 1st Thess 3:12–13; 1st Thess 5:23–24; 2nd Thess 1:11–12; 2nd Thess 3:1–5).
• The elders of the church are specif­i­cal­ly instruct­ed to make them­selves avail­able to pray for the sick (James 5:14–16).

All the spir­i­tu­al gifts should be wel­comed (1 Corinthi­ans 14:26; 1st Corinthi­ans 14:39, 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:19–20), although they should be deployed in such a way as to attract and not repel unbe­liev­ers (1st Corinthi­ans 14:24–25). Their effect on the church should not be chaot­ic (1st Corinthi­ans 14:40).

A church should be led by Bib­li­cal­ly qual­i­fied lead­ers:

• Who teach Bib­li­cal truth (2 Tim­o­thy 1:13–14; 2 Tim­o­thy 3:16–17; 2 Tim­o­thy 4:2; 1 Tim­o­thy 4:13; Titus 1:9)
• Who exer­cise appro­pri­ate author­i­ty (Hebrews 13:17; 1 Tim 4:11–12; 2nd Tim­o­thy 2:22–25; Titus 2:15)
• Who are above reproach in both char­ac­ter and rela­tion­ships (1 Tim 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9)

The church ought to care for the poor, espe­cial­ly poor believ­ers. (2nd Corinthi­ans 8–9; James 1:27; 1st Tim­o­thy 5:16; Gal 2:9–10; Gal 6:10; Acts 6:1–4). And the poor should be wel­comed into the life of the com­mu­ni­ty (James 2:1–7).

The church ought to also pay min­is­ters – both those who teach and lead with­in the church itself (1st Tim­o­thy 5:17–18; 1st Corinthi­ans 9:3–14; Gala­tians 6:6) and those who are sent out as mis­sion­ar­ies (3 John 5–8; Romans 16:1–2; Philip­pi­ans 4:10–20)

In order to facil­i­tate these lat­ter two points the church should be receiv­ing offer­ings (Acts 4:32–37; 1st Corinthi­ans 16:1–2), although it does not appear that they must be received in any par­tic­u­lar way.

There are prob­a­bly oth­er things church­es should be doing as well, but these seem to me to be essen­tial. No church will be per­fect, of course. Give them the same grace that you give to fel­low believ­ers, but avoid church­es that are not at least attempt­ing to ful­fill these man­dates.

[Jan­u­ary 23, 2010 update: after some feed­back on my Face­book notes page, I decid­ed to add the para­graph about prayer. I also made a few small changes.]