The Church.....
The ancient Creed affirms that we believe in “one holy catholic church.” The word “catholic” here is an adjective (as it only was in the early centuries of Christianity) meaning “universal, whole, complete, general, all-embracing” and should not be confused with a proper name of a denominational institution that applied the adjective to itself later.
We affirm the “mystical union of all believers,” “the communion of saints,” the “community of faith.” ALL believers in Jesus – across the centuries and continents – are united by our common faith in Christ as our Savior, united into the “household” or “family” of God, united as the “Body of Christ.” This communion, the church, this family is not limited by time or geography or institutional affiliations. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. The church is CHRISTIANS – in this sense, not an institution. Pardon the grammar, but “It’s not Jesus and ME, it’s Jesus and WE.” This is the primary and foremost meaning of “church.” See Ephesians 2:19-22, Ephesians 4:4, 1 Peter 2:9, Romans 12:4, Ephesians 1:1, Luke 17:21, etc.
Jesus founded the church catholic but not The Catholic Church. The church is not an it, the church is us.
We affirm in the Creeds that this corpus of Christians (past and present) is “one, holy, catholic, communion of saints.” Christians are bound together as one community of faith in Christ. We are holy because through this faith in Christ we are forgiven, we are catholic because together we are the whole corpus of believers, and we are a communion or community or fellowship of saints (those made so by faith in Christ). See Matthew 16:18, 1 Peter 2:5 & 9, Mark 16:15, Romans 15:25, 1 Cor. 14:33 and 16:1, Eph. 1:1).
Congregations…
Christians usually associate together, congregating or assembling typically for the purposes of public worship, mutual cooperation, edification, support and accountability. Such a gathering in a given place and time is technically called a “congregation” (although the term “church” may be used here in a secondary sense as in First Baptist Church of Snowflake Arizona; this use is seen in Scripture, too – see Galatians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 1:1). These associations may assume some institutional aspects but the “church” is the people, not the institution. Actually, the Christians who associate in that congregation are but a small, tiny part of the “church catholic” – the whole number of believers, past and present.
By their very nature, congregations include non-believers in their midst (some seekers, some “hypocrites”), Matthew 13:47-49 seems to indicate we should not be too obsessed about that, just preach the word and love all people (God will sort it all out). Of course, clearly unrepentant sinners and heretics should not be embraced since they can harm or even destroy the fellowship, and give a “false witness” to the community.
Because Christians are spread out all over the world, it’s no surprise that that are literally millions of congregations – some huge, some tiny, some with institutional aspects, some just an informal gathering in a living room. Several congregations are mentioned in the New Testament (Galatians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:2, Revelation 1:4, etc.).
A good congregation is where the Word is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered. Too often, people join (and leave) congregations for reasons that are secondary – at best! They may even overlook the important thing for irrelevant things.
The function of the church is to teach (Matthew 28:20, Deuteronomy 6:7, 2 Timothy 4:2), make disciples (Matthew 28:19, Ephesians 4:12-13, Acts 1:8, 1 Peter 2:9), worship (Hebrews 10:24-15), share Holy Communion (Acts 2:42), forgive the repentant (Matthew 18:21-22, Matthew 18:15-20), offer comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), care for the sick and needy (James 5:14, etc.), encourage and hold each other accountable (1 Thessalonians 5:14), serve and minister for the Gospel since ALL CHRISTIANS are ministers – everyone is a part of the team (1 Corinthians 12:4-26, 1 Peter 4:10). It is a cooperative, community, US ministry. To misquote President Kennedy, “Ask not what your church can do for you, ask what you can do for your church!”
Denominations…
Congregations (see above) may be denominational or non-denominational. Those are the only two options.
“Non-denominational” congregations are autonomous, independent, isolated and separate – with no formal relationship with any other congregation and with no accountability beyond itself.
“Denominational” congregations have bonded together with others in a formal manner, usually for reasons similar to why Christians bonded together with others in congregations. These congregations work and serve together, provide mutual accountability and support, etc.
The denomination that my congregation belongs to (The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod), for example, helped start our congregation (financially, too!), loaned us the money to build our facilities, trained and supervises our pastor, operates two seminaries and a dozen colleges and the largest Lutheran publishing house in the world, sends out missionaries all around the world – and much more. Congregations working together to do things each cannot fully do on its own. Our denomination consists of about 7,000 congregations in the USA.
Usually denominations have a common “Confession” (statements of doctrines and beliefs), a common name and a common governance and polity. In some, this is well developed and regarded as binding, in some it’s all pretty loose with a lot of “room” for the local congregation to apply such as they see best.
There are no examples of denominations in the New Testament. While some historians argue there were none until the 4th century, we do see at least some very elementary aspects of cooperation in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) and the collection for the saints. For the first 300 years, Christianity was an illegal, “underground” religion – more a movement than anything, often “on the run” and meeting informally and occasionally even secretly in “house churches.” This changed when Christianity was made legal and then the official Roman religion in the 4th century. At that time, clearly most congregations within the Roman Empire became a denomination (although it would officially split in 1054 and functionally long before that) but even then, many congregations were not part of this state institution. Never have all congregations been in one denomination.
Today, there are literally thousands of denominations, although about 90% of Christians are in 8 groupings of such. The fact is there are billions of Christian people, millions of congregations and thousands of denominations - but this has no relevance to the fact that there is ONE, holy, catholic, communion of saints. Irrespective of our institutions, WE are ONE by virtue of our one Lord Jesus, our one faith in Christ, our one baptism (Ephesians 4:5-6, Romans 12:5, Ephesians 4:25, 1 Corinthians 10:17 and 12:12-26).
There can be "families" of denominations - separate denominations but with a shared history and perhaps shared Confessions. The LCMS and ELCA for example are different, very separate denominations (they don't even especially like each other, lol) BUT both are part of the Lutheran community, tracing their history to Martin Luther and sharing the same Lutheran Confessions. There are dozens of Baptist denominations, but all within the Baptist community or family. Sometimes "denomination" is used in this sense, too.
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