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9 marks, 9 Marks Ministries, christian, christianity, church, church covenant, church covenants, church membership, ix marks, ix marks ministries, Mark Dever, theology
Does your church have a covenant? Does your church use its covenant? Should churches have covenants? And how should a church covenant be used?
Those can actually be pretty controversial questions. Mark Dever and others at IX Marks Ministries have invested significant time and energy into helping churches work through some of the controversy and develop biblical covenants and constitutions.
I’ll probably have more to say about church covenants later. For now, I’d like to ask you to think about the four questions I posed at the beginning of the post and share your answers in the comments. Thanks!
[EDIT] Important related posts on this blog:
Why do we make Covenants? (laying a foundation)
What difference does a church covenant make?
who am i? 
Great questions… I have often wondered the use and productiveness of covenants, constitutions, and by-laws… As of now I really have come to many answers.
Every church I have been a part of has them, but doesn’t use them… Except for the bylaws that tell you when to vote on certain issues!
Matt, you said, “Every church I have been a part of has [covenants], but doesn’t use them.” I suspect that’s the norm. What are your thoughts about how a church covenant could or should be used?
We have one. Since ours is a newly planted church (about a year and a half now) we were actually somewhat involved in the process of drawing it up. We, use it for our new membership classes, teaching straight through it. Members are required to agree to it. As a statement of faith it’s fairly broad. We are in the process of adopting a confession as well (1689 Baptist, with some alterations, re. the sabbath and the Pope as anti-christ), but are stalled at the moment. The Confession must be agreed upon by anyone aspiring to the role of elder or deacon, but regular members are not required to hold to it in its entirety.
We also refer to our constitution in how we carry out our meetings, and church discipline matters. I must admit, however to not having read it in many months.
I believe my “church”, as in the people who go to the building on sundays, have a covenant themselves, and I think this is a very good question. Let me start here…
Church is not A body but THE body around the world. A Church is not the building (that is a service where the Church meets), but the people.
So from my point of view, stating that, the Church has a covenant between themselves and God that God has established when they receive Him as their Lord and Savior…
I believe that the Church, as the body of Christ, the people, have use their covenant, if they are truly the Church, they will.
Churches??? Don’t believe in those… There isi THE Church, as I said before, but there are no “churches”… just places people meet. And no, I don’t think every building where meeting people there should be a different covenant… that would be a way of dividing the church in a community, and what needs to happen now, in this time in history, is the Church needs to come together, with one mission, with one covenant, to LOVE: love God, love people, which “sums of the law and the prophets” as Jesus said.
As a way to build up the community, giving of yourselves to others out of love and compassion given by God, and allowing the Lord to lead and guide you into people’s lives to bring them to the Lord. That should be our covenant, to Love God and not the world, and to love our neighbor as ourself, by giving of ourselves, in order to find it.
Thanks for the questions, I really enjoyed that. 🙂
stephen
by the way, the last comment was in order of the questions. I answered them one by one…
Stephen,
You make some good points. We do need to recognize THE Church universal and that the Church is not the building that people meet in. Also the importance of loving each other and others around us has been neglected at times. Likewise, all belivers in Christ are part of the New Covenant that was established by His blood. All good points.
Yet, the New Testament does seem to speak of the local Church as well as the Universal Church. For example, we see Paul and Silas going “through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches” (Acts 15:41). Also you see in acts references to the Church in Jerusalem, the Church in Antioch, the Church in Corinth etc. Also, Paul’s letter to the Galatians is addressed to “the churches of Galatia” (Gal. 1:2). Thus, it seems that the Universal Church expresses itself in local communities of believers, what we call churches.
The point of having a covenant in these local churches is to actually unite these believers to one another in particular. You are right in that we are called to be committed to all believers (and the lost). Yet, it is difficult for me to labor for the sanctification of every believer in the world in particular, but I can labor for those in my local church. Thus, I covenant with them to do just that.
Sorry so long, let me know what you think,
wm
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