FINDING A SOUND CHURCH

FINDING A SOUND CHURCH

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Copyright 1998. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without permission from the author. The articles cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional. OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, tell us who you are and where you are located, and request to be placed on the list. Also include your postal address and the name of the church of which you are a member. Please note that we take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and you will be expected to participate. Some of these articles are from the "Digging in the Walls" section of O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 16th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. The Way of Life web site is http://www.wayoflife.org/. The End Times Apostasy Online Database is located at this web site.]

Updated February 11, 1999 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - I often hear from people who are searching for a church and who want to know what I personally look for in one. This is not an easy matter. Churches are made up of imperfect people and are led by imperfect pastors and each sound New Testament church, like each individual Christian, will have its strengths AND weaknesses. To be a faithful church member, one must learn to accept some things in a church with which one disagrees. You have to learn to set doctrinal priorities, to know what is very important and what is less important.

I have been saved for 25 years and have been a member of four churches. I pastored one church briefly and started one overseas. I have preached in hundreds of others in many countries and have communicated with thousands of church members in various congregations. I know there is no perfect church, and as the old saying goes, if I ever found the perfect church I would be careful not to join it so as not to corrupt it!

That being said, it is equally true that a church should be biblically based and Spirit-filled and should be striving to obey the faith once delivered to the saints (1 Timothy 6:13-14; Jude 3). Following is a list of some of the things I personally look for in churches.

1. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S GOSPEL. Does the church preach a sound gospel? Does it preach repentance (not just turning from unbelief to belief but a change of mind toward God and sin which results in a change of life), or does it promote some sort of "quick prayerism" whereby people are told merely to pray a prayer regardless of whether they are repentant and under Holy Spirit conviction, are not dealt with plainly about sin and repentance, and whereby those who pray prayers are counted as "saved" even if there is no evidence of such in their lives. (One of the evidences of "quick prayerism" is the reporting of a large number of "salvations" even though the church does not grow in any proportional sense to those numbers.) Does the pastor ground the people in the full orb of Gospel truth, in the doctrines of repentance, justification, hope, security, sanctification? Does he warn of false gospels plainly and by name? It is impossible to preach the true gospel properly without contrasting it with the false gospels with which people are familiar. If the gospel is not so preached, people will tend to put their own preconceived definitions into the gospel terms we use. When we say "grace," for example, they might think of the false view of grace (mingled with works) taught by Rome or the cults. I also do not like TULIP theology, which teaches that man is incapable of responding to the Gospel (Total depravity), that God chooses which men will be saved and which men will be lost (Unconditional election), that Christ died only for those who will be saved (Limited atonement), and that the sinner cannot resist God's call to salvation (Irresistible grace). There are TULIP or Calvinist congregations which are zealous in soul winning and missions, but more often than not this theology deadens the evangelistic/missionary spirit of a church.

2. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S BIBLE. The Bible is the foundation for everything else in the church, and there are two doctrines that need to be analyzed in this connection: Inspiration and Preservation. First, Inspiration. Does the church believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God from cover to cover, that every word of the Bible is true, that every event in the Bible is authentic history, that everything the Bible says is absolutely dependable, even its "science"? Second, Preservation. Does the church have a conviction that God has preserved His Word in the Received Text and (if English speaking) in the Authorized English Version? It is one thing for a pastor to prefer the King James Bible. It is quite another thing for him to understand why it alone among the English versions is the preserved Word of God and for him to have a settled conviction about these matters. I would look to see if the church is grounded in these truths so that the leaders and teachers all have the same convictions and they have taught the people these convictions. If a pastor says he has a conviction about this but some of his key people are ignorant about the version issue, use modern versions, etc., I would seriously question his conviction. I would also warn about Peter Ruckman and his mean-spirited and divisive teachings, his idea that divorce does not disqualify a pastor, his false idea that salvation is by works in the Old Testament and during the Tribulation, and his position that the King James Bible is advanced revelation.

3. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S DOCTRINE. Does the church preach and stand for the whole counsel of God? What does the church teach about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, man, sin, death, the church, heaven, hell, the devil, the Scriptures, holiness, prophecy, etc.? Does the pastor deal with all of the doctrines and teachings of Scripture, or does he side step certain doctrines and issues. Does the pastor preach about the more difficult and controversial doctrines such as Hell? Separation? Holiness? Repentance? Ecclesiology? Our doctrinal position is described in the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity.

4. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S LEADERSHIP. We look for pastoral rule as opposed to deacon or trustee rule. The Bible never says a deacon is a ruler and there are no trustee church rulers described in the New Testament. The most important thing to look for in a church's leadership is their qualification according to Bible standards. God has very high standards for pastors and deacons (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1--exemplary family, no divorce, personal godliness, financially responsible, good testimony in the community, etc.). It is impossible for a church to be strong without qualified leadership. It has wisely been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. The pastors' and deacons' wives and children must also meet the standards of 1 Timothy 3.

5. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S POLITY. The church should be unaffiliated with a denominational structure. There is no pattern in the New Testament of the organization of intra-church unions or associations, and we do not believe that men have the biblical authority to form such associations or to participate in them. The church should not accept pedo-baptist and other unscriptural baptisms (those associated with a false gospel). The church should practice closed communion using unleavened bread and nonalcoholic wine.

6. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S PROTECTION OF THE SHEEP. Does the church preach AGAINST sin and error plainly so that the people can know exactly what to avoid? Does the pastor name the names of false teachers and compromisers, or does he only speak in generalities? Does the church stand against Modernism? New Evangelicalism? Psychology? Romanism? Charismaticism? Does it use important tools such as literature to assist in this crucial aspect of the ministry? This is a day in which an attitude of tolerance and positivism is sweeping through churches, even many which claim to be fundamentalist. Churches want to avoid controversy. They want to focus on the positive. This is apostasy.

7. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD. Does the church stand for personal holiness and against worldliness? Each decade the western societies are moving farther from biblical modesty and each decade the churches are more silent on this subject. I would ask if the church ever warns of evils such as unwholesome television fare, unwholesome movies, immodest clothing, partial nudity (at the beaches, etc.), covetousness, unisex, etc.? A church cannot necessarily set dress and other standards for all its members. When a person is newly saved, for instance, and he joins the church, he will not necessarily be the best model of biblical modesty and holiness. The church must be patient and seek to lead people step by step into truth and holiness, but the church can and must set high standards for its leaders and workers. If the pastor says he supports high moral standards and says he is against worldliness, but his wife and/or daughter dresses immodestly and he allows the other church officers and teachers to live in a worldly fashion, it is obvious that either he has no true convictions about these matters or he is too cowardly to enforce the Word of God in the church.

8. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S MISSION. The church should have a worldwide vision of church planting and the preaching of the Word of God. Missions is not merely another "program" the church can boast about, but missions should be truly the heart and soul of the church. This will be evident in many ways: (1) the pastor's life and emphasis will evidence his zeal for world missions; (2) the lifestyle and burden of the faithful families will evidence a zeal for world missions; they will love to support and entertain missionaries, to communicate and pray for missionaries; to visit missionaries; to send their children to be missionaries; (3) a church's missionary zeal will also be evident in the lives of the young people in that many of them will catch the vision and heart of missions and will dedicate their lives for this purpose. Churches which are truly missionary-minded produce missionaries. A good quick test for any church is to look at the young people, to see what they are interested in, generally speaking. If the youth are worldly, it is because there is a worldly influence in the families and in the church. (Worldly homes undermine godly churches, and worldly churches undermine godly homes.) If young people are not yielding their lives to the service of Christ, it is evidence of a deep spiritual problem in the congregation, from top to bottom. Unless you are willing to lose your children to the world, don’t join a church which has a worldly youth group. I would also strictly avoid a church which has replaced the Great Commission with some new form of mission such as social work or environmentalism or politics or political/social reconstructionism. I am very wary of churches which are deeply involved in political activism, because I don’t see anything like that in the teaching and ministry of the Apostles.

9. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S HEART. As we see in Revelation chapter 2, it is possible for a church to be doctrinally sound and zealous for the truth but lacking in passion for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The church at Ephesus had left its "first love." We must be careful that the church remains passionate and Spirit filled. Is the pastor compassionate and does he evident the fullness of the Spirit? What about his wife? What about the other leaders and teachers? Are the church members, generally speaking, heavenly-minded, Christ-centered people who walk with the Lord Jesus Christ? Do they love the Bible in their daily lives? Do they love spiritual music? Do they love the things of God more than the things of the world?

10. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S STANDARDS FOR WORKERS. The Bible requires high standards not only for the pastors and deacons but for all church workers (1 Tim. 3:8-13; 1 Cor. 4:2; 2 Cor. 8:18-21; Eph. 6:21; Col. 1:7; 4:7,9; 2 Tim. 2:2). Anyone can attend the church (except heretics which have been rejected -- Titus 3:10-11), but those who assume positions within the church are representatives not only of the Lord Jesus Christ but also of the church. The church's testimony is judged by the lives of its workers. We have given a sample set of written standards for church workers at our web site. See the articles "Why Have Standards for Church Workers" and "Requirements for Church Workers" under the "Church" section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site -- http://www.wayoflife.org/

11. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S YOUTH MINISTRY. If there is a "youth program" as such, it is not characterized merely by constant entertainment and does not encourage young people to be worldly "cool," but rather is characterized by training the young people to be godly and to dedicate their lives wholly to the service of Jesus Christ. The church has no biblical mandate to entertain young (or old) people; the mandate is to teach them all things which Jesus Christ has commanded us to obey in His Word (Matt. 28:18-20). The mandate is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus defined a disciple as one who has rejected the world and given up his own life for the will and work of Christ (Mark 8:34-35). A disciple of Christ is one who has lost his life for Christ's sake and the Gospel's sake, meaning his life is characterized by zeal for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The leaders of the youth programs should not relate to the young people on the level of a worldly "cool" and "hip" approach, but should be mature and godly and spiritually discerning people who can lead the young people in God's perfect will and can make disciples of the youth. The youth leaders should know more about the Bible than about sports, more about doctrine than about talk radio, more about prayer than about television, more about a burden for souls at home and abroad than about fashion! This comes back to having high standards for church workers. If the youth workers are worldly, spiritually lackadaisical, and lacking in moral discernment, the youth will be the same. Too many churches are caving into the ungodly philosophy of youth ministry that says youth must be reached with their "own music," their "own fashions," their "own fun," etc. This is foolish, and it is utterly unscriptural. It is also unreasonable. Whatever youth are won WITH they are won TO. Better that a church have no "youth program" at all than to have a worldly one. I believe the entire concept of segregating young people continually into their own groups and isolating them from adults is unscriptural and counterproductive to the will of God. Our churches have adopted this pattern from the world, and it is something which needs to be reconsidered in light of the Word of God. In former times young people were not so segregated but intermingled continually with adults in every facet of life, and they were better off for it. When young people are segregated into groups of their own peers and allowed, even encouraged, to form their own culture and are largely isolated from adults (such as in modern educational systems), they are literally the blind leading the blind (Prov. 22:15)!

A good quick test of any church is to look at the young people, to see what they are interested in, generally speaking. If the youth are worldly, it is because of a worldly influence in the home and the church. If young people are not yielding their lives to the service of Christ, it is evidence of a deep spiritual problem in the congregation, from top to bottom. Unless you are willing to lose your children to the world, don’t join a church which has a worldly youth group.

12. EXAMINE THE CHURCH’S MUSIC MINISTRY. No Contemporary Christian Music; no commercial heavy-rhythm background tapes produced by ecumenists, charismatics, and the worldly CCM crowd; not using charismatic-produced "praise" choruses. I believe spiritual music is much more, though, than merely avoiding Christian rock music and the grosser forms of CCM. Many churches which avoid CCM are caught up with other types of music which are shallow, repetitive, frequently-unscriptural, emotion-oriented, with an over-emphasis on rhythm--such as much of the Southern Gospel-type music. I realize that many men disagree with me on this, but I am convinced that much of the Southern Gospel music is little more than fleshly entertainment. I started my preaching ministry in Florida, Tennessee, and other parts of the deep South, and it was very common to see worldly Christians flock to Southern Gospel concerts who otherwise did not live faithfully for the Lord. They loved the entertainment provided by that style of music, but they cared nothing for holiness. That spoke volumes to me about the nature of such music. The music program of the church should be controlled by godly people (we do not believe it is proper for a woman to lead the music) who are Spirit-led in every detail, who have genuine personal convictions about the nature of spiritual music and who understand the danger of worldly "Christian" music, and who are spiritually consistent. I am finding that in many churches a semblance of spiritual music is still retained in the services, but the music leaders and/or musicians and pastors use carnal music in their personal lives. That is a form of hypocrisy and compromise which will rob the church's music program of God's blessing and power and such a schizophrenic practice will soon break down and give way to the incorporation of carnal music in the church services. There is an intense war being waged today for the heart and soul of Bible-believing churches, and one of the devil's most effective Trojan horses is music.

As far as denominations go, it is far more likely that you will find these things among old-fashioned Fundamental Baptists than among any other group. Certainly this is true in the States. I am not a Protestant, because Protestantism retained too much from the Roman church from which it descended. Take infant baptism, for example. I cannot accept any pedobaptist church as a New Testament church, for there is no such thing in Scripture. I am a New Testament Christian. I do not trace my heritage through the Protestant Reformation, but through separated, Bible-believing, baptizing Christians down through the centuries to the first churches. A careful study of Baptist history is most enlightening in this respect. Most of the popular church histories are written by Protestants and, in my estimation, do not tell the whole story. I must hasten to add that a large number of Baptist churches today are apostate, and even among those which claim to be Fundamental Baptist or Independent Baptist there are many which are drifting far from the Old Paths and are drinking from the fountains of New Evangelical positivism and compromise and psychology and ecumenism and worldliness. Many are also more like circuses than churches of the living God. Others have replaced biblical evangelism with a man-made, no repentance, quick prayerism, get those numbers as fast as you can even if there is no evidence of salvation program. The Bible is the standard of a church's authenticity, not a name or label. There are churches that do not bear the name Baptist but are standing in the New Testament faith and are separated from error and ecumenism. There are places I have traveled in Asia and Eastern Europe, for example, in which the Baptists are apostate from the Word of God and the New Testament faith is maintained by churches that do not bear that distinguished name. I don't care so much about a church's name; I care about its doctrine and position and heart and zeal and vision as compared with the Word of God, the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Find that and you will have found a sound church. The test of a church’s soundness is not its name; it is its faithfulness to the Word of God.

IN CONCLUSION PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING VERY IMPORTANT TRUTHS WHEN SEARCHING FOR A CHURCH:

(1) ALL MEN ARE SINNERS AND IMPERFECT, AND THAT INCLUDES PASTORS. The churches established by the Apostles were far from perfect. Consider the seven churches of Revelation. We must always exercise our judgments with grace and patience. If we know our own hearts, we know how imperfect we are and how far short we fall from God’s perfect will. This is true for every Christian and every church. We must look for the best church possible, but we must not necessarily require flawlessness, for that would be impossible. Those who do not learn this lesson find themselves perpetual church hoppers, continually in search for perfection, never satisfied, never faithful. We will always have to accept some things with which we do not necessarily agree.

(2) PASTORAL AUTHORITY MEANS THE PASTORS AND OTHER CHURCH OFFICERS WILL ANSWER TO GOD FOR THINGS THE CHURCH MEMBERS DO NOT. God instructs me to submit to pastoral authority. "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you" (Hebrews 13:17; see also Acts 20:28; 1 Thess. 5:12-13; Heb. 13:7; 1 Pet. 5:2). The pastor will give account to God for the authority he exercises in the church. If I disagree with some of his decisions (and I will), I can leave the matter with the Lord, knowing that I don’t have God-given authority to make those decisions and that the pastor is accountable. This does not mean that I am to quietly accept things I believe are wrong. I have every right to approach the pastor about such things. If a pastor is unapproachable and not open to possible correction, he is not qualified for the job. Paul rebuked Peter for his compromise and hypocrisy (Gal. 2:11-14). This also does not mean I am to blindly follow a pastor wherever he wants to lead. Everything is to be tested by the Word of God (1 Cor. 14:29; 1 Thess. 5:21; Isa. 8:20). No pastor is above being critiqued by the Word. The pastor’s only authority is the Bible (Heb. 13:7). If he goes beyond the Bible he has gone beyond his authority. The Catholic Church demands that people submit to its traditions and teachings as equal in authority to the Scriptures, but Bible-believing people reject that silly notion. We should also reject it when a Baptist pastor (or pastor of a Bible church, etc.) attempts to lead people in ways not supported by the Word of God. The pastor has oversight authority but not lordship authority (1 Peter 5:2-3). Pastor Diotrephes was rebuked because he "loveth to have the preeminence" (3 John 9-10). Beware of that type of pastoral leadership. It is dangerous and should be rejected. We don’t need a haughty pope; we need a godly Spirit-filled shepherd. Returning to our topic, though, it is crucial to learn to submit to biblical pastoral authority. The pastor is called a bishop because he is an overseer, and God gives him the authority to perform that difficult task. He is said to have "the ruler over you" (Heb. 13:17). Those who are not pastors do not have this type of authority in the church and must not attempt to oversee the overseer. Many people who leave fundamental Baptist and other Bible-believing churches do so because they are not willing to submit to pastoral authority.

(3) IT IS GOD’S EXPRESSED WILL THAT EVERY CHRISTIAN BE A FAITHFUL MEMBER OF A NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. That is plainly the biblical example. It is impossible to obey verses such as Hebrews 10:25 and 13:7,17 without being a functioning member of a church. A home Bible study is not a church. In certain circumstances, there will not be a biblical church available. In such instances, the child of God should make every attempt either to relocate or to start a sound church in his area. See our article "What If There Is No Good Church?" under the "church" section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site.

(4) HAVING STATED THE IMPORTANCE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP, I WOULD HASTEN TO ADD A WARNING THAT GOD FORBIDS HIS PEOPLE TO ASSOCIATE WITH FALSE GOSPELS AND HERESY. 2 John 8-11 warns that fellowshipping with those who teach a false christ or false gospel results in loss of reward and makes one a partaker of the evil deeds of the false teachers. This is a very serious matter and requires that the Christian separate from churches and associations which put them into fellowship with heretics. If the church leaders themselves are not heretics but the church is associated with heretics through a denominational structure, the church member is still yoked together with false teachers.

(5) GOD MUST UNITE THE CHRISTIAN WITH A CHURCH. The church is the body of Christ, and each member is a living part of that body (1 Cor. 12:27). God must put the church together. Thus, above all else, I must seek His perfect will about a church family. He is deeply concerned about the church (Ephesians 3:21) and He will certainly lead His children through the end times confusion (John 8:31-32; 7:17). Only the Lord can enable the child of God to discern a scripturally sound church.

I trust this helps. The Lord’s blessing and grace be with each of you.