Who, What, When, Where, Why, How Is the Church?

Joseph D. Small
Director, Theology
Worship and Education

What do we mean when we speak the word church? In everyday speech the word evokes a variety of conceptions and images that are maintained kaleidoscopically, with ever-shifting changes in pattern and hue: buildings, people, congregations, organizations, denominations, communions, and more. The situation is only marginally better when the word is used theologically, necessitating qualifiers and alternates to specify what we mean by our use of the word.

What we mean by the word is important because the church is central in the reception, preservation, and transmission of Christian truth. We are introduced to Christian faith and life in the church, and it is in the church that we learn the truth of the gospel and the truth of Christian discipleship. John Calvin captured all of this in a striking image:

Because it is now our intention to discuss the visible church, let us learn from the simple title “mother” how useful, indeed how necessary, it is that we should know her. For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance ... until we have been pupils all our lives. 1

We do not learn faith and faithfulness in the abstract; we learn in the concrete reality of the church. But what, concretely, is this church?

It is a fundamental conviction of Reformed ecclesiology that the gathered congregation is the basic form of church ... but not a sufficient form of church. The gathered congregation is the one holy catholic and apostolic church, not of itself alone — as if it were a solitary, self-sufficient ecclesia — but in its essential communion with the Lord and therefore in communion with other gathered congregations. One of the ways congregations live out the reality of communion is through denominations. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a communion of congregations, bound to one another in their one Lord through covenant unity.

Calvin provides a helpful characterization of the church: “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.” 2 The Word of God rightly proclaimed and heard, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper celebrated in fidelity to Christ, these are the clear indicators of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Calvin’s “two marks of the church” center on lived faith within congregations. He does not speak in the first instance about a church’s orthodox doctrine or its sacramental theology, much less about its structures, but about the faithfulness of proclamation and reception, and the faithfulness of sacramental practice, within gathered Christian communities. The marks of the church concern fundamental ecclesial faithfulness that allows the gospel to be received, believed, and lived by ordinary men and women.

Proclamation of the gospel in Word and Sacrament is not limited to worship, nor is it the only thing churches do. However, designating Word and Sacrament as marks of the true church means that other church activities must not bury Word and Sacrament, or push them to the periphery of church life. Furthermore, the whole range of church programs must remain subject to authentication by Word and Sacrament, for these crucial realities are the embodiment of the gospel in the life of Christ’s women and men. Word and Sacrament stand as the controlling core of church activities, the marks of a church’s true life.

Education for children, youth, and adults is central to the church’s calling to proclaim the gospel in word and action. We do not conduct educational programs in congregations in order to transmit Bible facts or convey sacramental theory. Rather, we teach and learn in order to call boys and girls, women and men, to lives of committed discipleship. Christian education is congregational tutoring in Christian faith and faithfulness. Joined to Christ and to one another in the waters of baptism, nurtured by Christ in bread and wine, we hear and speak God’s word together so that we may love God more deeply and serve neighbors more fully.

Congregational Ministries Publishing is committed to providing congregations with resources that clarify belief, deepen trust, and broaden loyalty to the God made known to us in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Educational resources are one important element in forming disciples and in forming communities of faith built around the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, made known in Word and Sacrament.

Notes
1. John T. McNeill, ed., Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, The
Library of Christian Classics, vol. XXI (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1960), 4.1.4.
2. Ibid., 4.1.9.