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A
Brief Apologetic for the City Church of Spokane...(Page
1)
Topics
discussed are:
"By this shall all men know that you are my disciples,
if you love one another." John 13:35
"I pray…for those who will believe in me through
their message, that all of them may be one, Father,
just as you are in me and I am in you…. I have given
them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one
as we are one…. May they be brought to complete unity
to let the world know that you sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me." John 17:20-23
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem…."
Acts 1:8
The life, health and spread of the church of Jesus
Christ immediately following Pentecost stands as one
of the greatest demonstrations of God's grace and power
throughout the centuries. While there were certainly
many factors that contributed to the depth and breadth
of the early church, this apologetic would like to propose
that one of those key factors was the existence of a
practical and relational unity of the people of God
in any given city and that the absence or existence
of such unity has important implications for our city
today.
We would propose that the absence of biblical city-wide
unity by the Church today has had a detrimental impact
upon the life and witness of God's people in the city.
Stated positively, we believe that the presence of a
biblically united and healthy city-church results in
God blessing his people with a level of church life
and public witness otherwise absent in that city. We
believe that God, in some important way, deals with
His people on a city-wide basis.
I.
God's Dealing with People on a City Basis
When one begins to look at the New Testament through
a 'city-lense' of vision, we are forced to acknowledge
that either cities have a particular role to play in
God's Kingdom strategy or there exists a significant
amount of biblical material that simply 'happens' to
touch on ministry that is framed in a clearly city-based
context.
Consider, for example, the following random questions
prompted by a look at God's dealings with cities in
the New Testament alone.
- Why was it that Jesus spoke some of his harshest
words of judgment against individual cities
(Mt. 11:20ff) rather than provinces, regions
or nation-states?
- Is it insignificant that Jesus called for
effective world evangelization to begin first
with effective city-focused witness (Ac. 1:8)?
(Note the relationship in Acts 2 & 4 between
united city-church life and ongoing evangelistic
witness and growth.)
- Is there any significance in the fact that
Jesus, in the Parable of the Ten Minas (Lk.
19:11-27) rewarded faithful and competent stewards
of mere financial resources with oversight of
entire cities?
- Was it merely superb management expertise
that led Paul to leave Titus in Crete to "appoint
elders in every town" (Titus 1:5) rather than
various gathered fellowships in a given city?
- And why, whenever Paul writes to saints in
a given city, did he address his words to "the
church" (singular) in that city but when he
writes or refers to a region (such as Judea,
Galatia or Macedonia) he speaks to/of "the churches"
(plural) of that region?
- Is it not significant that our Lord's last
recorded words to the developing churches of
the first century were addressed to the spiritual
needs of "the church [sing.] in…" each of seven
individual cities?
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We would like to propose that one of the critical components
of the effective spread of the Gospel in the first century
had to do with the principle that God was dealing with
his people at some level on a city-church basis and
that his people were, at some level, living in biblical
unity at the city level.
We believe that one of the reasons the Church in twentieth
century western civilization has been so relatively
ineffective today is that it has been fragmented into
dozens if not hundreds of unconnected and unrelated
congregations and denominations within any given city.
Calls for even minimal city-church unity are usually
written off as " a contemporary impossibility" or "theological
compromise". We would propose that it is neither but
rather a falling short of a standard of experience to
which God has always called his Church.
Lest this be seen as a merely academic discussion,
let us be reminded that never in the history of Spokane,
this nation or this world have there been more unsaved
and unchurched people than there are today. While the
spread of the Gospel is making tremendous strides world-wide,
the growth of the Church in Spokane over the past decade
or more has merely kept pace with the biological growth
of the region (0.5% per year compared to the population).
Some congregations have grown. Some have declined. The
overall net effect has been that less than one in five
people in Spokane attend church on any given Sunday.
Of the 414,500 residents of Spokane County, some 340,000
are not a functioning part of a congregation from week
to week.
But if God's people in any given city are to attempt
ministry on any sort of city-wide basis in a way which
encompasses the spectrum of God's church in that city,
it must be based upon a solid scriptural foundation.
Continue to next page...
The
Scriptural Basis for the City-Church
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