If we decide to follow the Lord Jesus, and join his church, we will need to think through how to live as a believer, and how to function as a church, and what to do in our meetings together.
One easy solution is to think what we would like to do as believers, and what we would like to be and do as Christ’s church. The danger of this approach is that the personal and church life we create will be largely shaped by the world in which we live. It will feature feel-good situations and experiences, be entertaining, and shaped by our own needs, desires, fears and hopes. It will be self-centred, not God-centred.
We could and should go to the Bible to find the answer to the questions. The Bible tells us what to do, but not always how to do it.
How should we pray? How should we meditate on God’s word? How should we baptize people? How should we provide financial support for the ministry we receive? How should local churches be structrured?
While we are defined by what the Bible tells us to do, we can find wisdom from the ways in which Christian believers over the last 2000 years have done these things. It is good to so this, because they did not suffer from some of the contemporary blind-spots and prejudices of our current world, which tend to shape and sometimes distort contemporary Christianity.
For example, can you imagine someone today giving this reply when ill? John Fletcher, vicar of Madeley in the UK from 1760-85, was ill, and a friend visited him, and said, ‘I am sorry to find you so ill.’ Fletcher replied,
Sorry, sir! Why are you sorry? It is the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and I rejoice in it. I love the rod of my God, and rejoice therein, as an expression of his love and affection towards me.[1]
Or, from the 19th century USA, here is an account of a prayer movement.
In September 1857, a man of prayer, Jeremiah Lanphier, started a prayer meeting in the upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church Consistory building, in Manhattan. In response to his advertisement, only six people out of the population of a million showed up. But, the following week, there were fourteen, and then twenty-three, when it was decided to meet every day for prayer. By late winter, they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church of John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in downtown New York was filled.
Horace Greeley, the famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing around the prayer meetings to see how many men were praying: in one hour, he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6100 men attending. Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings. People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone.[2]
So, what are some Anglican habits which are still valuable today? Here are four habits which I value very deeply.
1. Sunday meetings as God’s people.
What are some features of Reformed Anglican identity, and what happens if we don’t follow them?
Every service includes:
At least two Bible readings, and a sermon in which the Bible is expounded and its implications explained and urged. [How wonderful to put a priority in hearing God’s words to us! How easy to reduce Bible readings!]
An exhortation to the congregation to confess their sins. [Do we ever do this?]
A prayer of confession of sins said by the congregation. [So easily forgotten.]
An assurance of God’s forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ. [A great and immediate proclamation of the gospel! A great reminder for all believers, and words of hope to unbelievers.]
Congregational responses to the Bible readings which express some aspects of Biblical Salvation History, using passages from the Bible, including the songs of Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon. [The Bible is more than instructions to us: it is primarily God’s verbal self-revelation. We should respond with praise and thanks to him. Romans 1:21 warns of the danger of failing to glorify God and give thanks to him.]
The congregation saying the Creed, as a final response to the Bible readings, and to praise our gracious God. [This is useful to build up believers: it also equips them to talk about God to others.]
Intercessions which follow Paul’s instructions, that,
petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth [1 Timothy 2:1-4].
[How easily our prayer-focus shrinks from praying for all people, their welfare, and their salvation, and reduces to the needs of some members of the church!]
Prepared, Bible-rich prayers. [If we only use spontaneous prayers, we are restricted by our own memory, imagination, and creativity. We use prepared, Bible-rich songs: why not also use some prepared Bible-rich prayers, to complement our spontaneous prayers?].
Furthermore, in the recent past, Church of England Anglicans, John Stott and Dick Lucas, have pioneered the recovery of expository preaching, with impact across the world with Langham Preaching, and Cornhill programs.
These are all ways in which Anglican habits are of great benefit in maturing us as we meet together on Sundays as God’s people.
2. Neglect polity [church government] at your peril!
One feature of contemporary life which is attractive to us is its anti-institutionalism. We don’t like to think about structures of governance and leadership. We tend to hold the optimistic view [despite our theology!] that Christians can do without structures of governance, leadership and management.
I see this happening in the contemporary church-planting movement. Often a church starts in an informal way, and then assumes that will work in the long-term. Actually, Paul thought that structures in church life were essential, which is why he told Titus to ‘put in order what was left unfinished, and appoint elders in every town’ [Titus 1:5].
Churches need responsible financial management, and not let the minister run the church from his own bank account! It needs a system, a procedure clear and publicly known responsibility for deciding how the money will be spent, and who is authorised to spend it. So recognised and accountable leaders are necessary, not only to oversee the finances, but also to appoint [and, if necessary, remove] any paid staff, to decide their position description, and to ensure good working conditions. Leaders are also needed to decide the priorities of the church, and the conditions of membership. These leaders need to be appointed, and the terms of their appointment decided. In all of this, there needs to be the right balance of authority and responsibility between the members of the church, the lay leaders of the church, and those appointed and employed to be ministry leaders. A church can function quite well without all this, until there is any disagreement. Then you need the structures to be already in place!!!
In addition, unless you are an absolute congregationalist, and hold that every congregation must be absolutely independent, then you need to clarify the relationship between the congregation and the Association, Network, or Denomination to which it belongs.
You don’t want the Association, Network, or Denomination to have all the power. You don’t want the ministry leader to have all the power. You don’t want the congregation to have all the power. You don’t want the lay leaders to have all the power!
I value Anglican Polity, because it provides a good balance of power and responsibility between the congregation; the lay leaders; the ministry leader; and the Bishop and denomination. I think that to have the church council elected/appointed for one year at a time is a good strategy. Providing for the annual meeting of members to elect 2/3rds of the church council, and the minister to appoint 1/3rd is a good balance. To give the minister, or the church council, or the congregation all the power and responsibility is a disaster! One key to healthy long-term congregation life is a good balance of responsibility. I think that Anglicans are on the right track!
Tim Dyer is an Australian expert on church conflict. One of his sayings is that churches are prone to conflict, but ill-prepared to deal with it. One key is having wise and balanced polity in place. Anglican polity is a precious gift!
3. God’s global gospel plan.
Anglicans have a good record of commitment to God’s global gospel plan. Many parts of north-western Europe were evangelised by Anglicans from England. England itself was covered with church plants.
While being an established church has its disadvantages, one advantage is that a Anglican parish church has an instinctive sense of responsibility for all the people in its geographical area. At its best, this includes an evangelistic responsibility. So Anglican churches, at their best, combine a focus on the life of the church with a focus on the local community. They inherit a clear sense of responsibility for their neighbours.
The existence of ‘global Anglicanism’ is the result of energetic evangelism by Anglicans in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, The Arctic, and the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand.
4. Theological framework.
Since 1662, the theological Framework of what is now ‘global Anglicanism’ has been the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and The Ordinal. The 3 major Creeds are included in the Book of Common Prayer.
This is not an up-to-date Theological Framework, but, as it happens it includes all the key themes of Reformed Theology. It includes:
The Bible as the supreme and sufficient verbal authority given by God, the Trinity, the centrality of Christ and his atoning death, God’s grace, human sinfulness, the need for repentance, the assurance of salvation, the role of the church, the call to pray, thank and praise God, and to serve God in everyday life, and the promise of Christ’s return in glory.
CS Lewis warned of the danger of ‘chronological snobbery’, of the believing that the present was always superior to the past. Of course, we must minister and serve in our contemporary world, and, in a world which is constantly and rapidly changing, that is a constant challenge and opportunity.
But we can learn from the past, as believers in former days were not blinded by the worldliness of our current age.
I was ordained in the Diocese of Melbourne in 1970. I regard this as one of the great privileges of my life, and continue to praise and thank God for it.
Of course I grieve the many sins and weaknesses of Anglican churches. However I also grieve the many sins and weaknesses of all churches, including independent churches, evangelical churches, and Reformed churches. But one day the Lord Jesus will present his church to himself as ‘a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless’ [Ephesians 5:27]. And even now he calls dead churches to life and repentance: ‘Wake up’ [Revelation 3:2].
May God give us all the humility to learn from the saints of the past, and value their heritage! And may God also give us wisdom to serve in our contemporary world with love, wisdom, faithfulness and trust in the power of Christ’s gospel.
One further thought! Of course we pray for our churches when they are in trouble. But do we pray the kind of expansive and positive prayers for our churches that Paul prayed for the church in Colossae?
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins [Colossians 1:9-14].
We pray for unbelievers, we pray for our missionaries, we pray for our family and friends: do we pray for our churches?