God Gave Local Churches Broad Freedom, but a Few Boundaries

Francis Schaeffer

I mentioned Francis Schaeffer’s The Church at the End of the 20th Century a few days ago (see “What Will the Church Be Like 30 Years from 1970?”). Schaeffer is one of the great Christian philosopher-theologians of the preceding century. I’m reading the aforementioned 1970 book for the first time, and I promised to share more from its pages as I do.

Chapters 4 and 5 are titled “Form and Freedom in the Church” and “The Practice of Community and Freedom.” Schaeffer poses the question: “[What are] the boundary conditions set forth in the New Testament on the polity of the church?” In other words, what are the essential characteristics of the church which should be true of every local congregation, regardless of time, geography or culture. Schaeffer proposed eight “biblical norms” for the local church:

1. “There should be churches made up of Christians.” In other words, the existence of local churches is not optional. Acknowledgement of the universal Church (capital “C”) does not negate the mandate for the local church (lowercase “c”).

2. “Congregations met together in a special way on the first day of the week.” That is simply a statement of historical fact, which Schaeffer ties to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

3. “There are to be church officers (elders) who have responsibility for the local churches.” Among other Scriptures, Schaeffer mentions Acts 14:23: “They appointed elders in every church…” He also deduces from 1 Timothy 5:17 that there are two kinds of elders, those who preach and teach and those who do not.

4. “There should be deacons responsible for the community of the church in the area of material things.” Schaeffer references Acts 6:1-6. This would have greater significance to modern churches if meeting the material needs of members was a greater priority in the modern church. Schaeffer indicts the modern church on this score: “We have lost our way and ignore the tough stuff — the care of each other’s material needs.”

5. “The church is to take discipline seriously.”

6. “There are specific qualifications for elders and deacons.”

7. “There is a place for form on a wider basis than the local church.” Schaeffer does not elaborate much on this point, but I believe what he is trying to do is to establish a biblical precedent for denominational structure. He refers to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, where leaders from multiple churches gathered to clarify church doctrine.

8. “The two sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are to be practiced.”

In listing these eight principles, Schaeffer’s intention was to identify all of the biblical “boundaries” for the local church, in order to thus identify the many areas of freedom which lie beyond those boundaries. He writes:

These are the New Testament forms commanded by God. These norms are not arbitrary – they are God’s form for the institutional, organized church and they are to be present in the 20th century as well as any century. Second, there are vast areas which are left free. There is form, and there is freedom … My primary point as we prepare for the end of the 20th century is, on the one hand, that there is a place for the institutional church and that it should maintain the form commanded by God, but, on the other hand, that this also leaves vast areas of freedom for change.

When Schaeffer wrote those words, he was responding to a generation of students in the 1960s who were rebelling against “the establishment,” including many young Christians who were weary of the ossified structures of the traditional church. Schaeffer wanted to identify the few biblical essentials regarding church practice, in order to identify the many areas that are non-essentials and therefore areas for broad freedom in how we do church.

Schaeffer mentions some areas of freedom: whether churches meet in buildings or in homes, the order we follow in our worship services, and whether our meetings are formal or less so. “Refusal to consider change under the direction of the Holy Spirit is a spiritual problem, not an intellectual problem,” he wrote.

In 2006, there remains a need to be clear in our understanding of what is biblical essential and what is not, and to be open-minded regarding how churches choose to act in the many areas in which God has given us freedom. Yes, God has allowed us plenty of room for variation and experimentation in how we practice church. However, in the 21st century I believe it has become more important than ever to also emphasis the other side of Schaeffer’s argument, that there are a few things that are biblical mandates for the local congregation.

I would restate the essentials identified by Schaeffer as follows:

1. Christian believers must assemble to form local congregations.

2. We must meet as a church on Sunday to commemorate the resurrection of Christ.

3. We must practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

4. We must have church government led by biblically qualified elders and deacons.

5. We must tend to the spiritual discipline of church members.

In the 21st century, the American church is rapidly drifting from even this short list of biblical norms.

• Christians float from church to church, and many Christians attend no church at all, believing that commitment to a neighborhood church is optional and irrelevant. Recently, one of the leading church thinkers of our day essentially applauded this trend. (See: “You Say You Want a Revolution?”)

• The concept of leadership by elders and deacons has been abandoned by many churches in favor of leadership by paid professional staff. I have no objection to paid ministers being part of the leadership team, but it is a fatal error to turn all leadership over to “the professionals.” I would compare it to parents who would turn over the raising of their children entirely to paid “child care specialists.” The result would perhaps be a more professional environment with more advanced technological gear and the ability to accommodate many more children at a time, but what would be lost is the personal, intimate, loving connection between parent and child.

That is exactly what is happening in modern American churches, particularly the megachurches, as a result of replacing lay leadership and the family atmosphere of the neighborhood church with professional-level events and activities orchestrated by professional clergy. Churches today are much more slick and professional, but much less personal and loving. One reason is abandonment of the biblical concept of elders and deacons.

• As church worship services have become evangelistic events geared toward non-believers and non-attenders, churches are deemphasizing or even abandoning baptism and the Lord’s Supper as antiquated rituals that are irrelevant to those who want fast-food churches that entertain them, give them an emotional boost, and send them on their way in a hurry.

• With the loss of biblical elders and the gravitation from neighborhood congregations to megachurches, the idea of church discipline no longer has any meaning or application.

Schaeffer was right 36 years ago that beyond a few biblical mandates, there is plenty of room for freedom in how we do church. However, he is also right that there are some God-given boundaries that the local church must abide by. As modern American churches increasingly ignore those biblical boundaries, we place in peril the church of the 21st century.