Today Bethany, Tomorrow South Carolina

How the Local Church is Designed to Feed All the Members of Its Community

Good Morning,

The next portion of the Westminster Directory of Church Government looks at the organization that we call the church. It is particularly important to see that when the writers of the DCG talk about the congregation gathered together in a local place they are referring to what we have called before the visible church, that is those who have publicly professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ along with their children. There is a common way of speaking about the church that would say that it is a hospital for sinners not a retirement home for saints. While there is truth to this way of speaking it is the nature (as we will see) of any hospital that the people are not to remain sick while they are there. The goal of a hospital is to take in those in need of a physician, see them receive the medicine they need (the gospel) and head back home to continue to rehab with the careful assistance of a home health provider (the Holy Spirit) using best practices (the means of grace). Our Lord speaks to this in His own way in the parable of the talents. Those who took what the master gave them and improved on it were commended while the one who buried it in his backyard was chastised. When we receive the gift of salvation it is the beginning of a process of sanctification that all men are called to. To take the grace of life and squander it is sin.

The Church is Christ’s arena to see us accomplish the work of true spiritual growth through the earthly oversight of the undershepherds of the Great Shepherd. Ministers, Elders, and Deacons are called as we saw the last few weeks to guide the sheep to the good pastures, fix up wounds caused by their own missteps and the attacks of predators, and ensure they are receiving all the blessings provided in the kingdom of God. As we know the leaders of the church can make a mistake at times and we should be willing to show the same grace we hope to have from them.

In today’s look at the Directory of Church Government we are going to talk a little more about how the congregations which we call local churches are set to operate, and especially how the writers of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms sought to see not only members, but the whole wider community, regardless of their personal love for Jesus, kept and provided for in the common grace of the presence of Christ’s embassies on this planet. Let’s read below first:

It is lawful and expedient that there be fixed congregations, that is, a certain company of Christians to meet in one assembly ordinarily for publick worship. When believers multiply to such a number, that they cannot conveniently meet in one place, it is lawful and expedient that they should be divided into distinct and fixed congregations, for the better administration of such ordinances as belong unto them, and the discharge of mutual duties.

As you may know from the history of Bethany ARP Church, a reason why there are so many ARP churches in our local area is that we have found ourselves several times in the past with a situation just as described in the paragraph above. Our size got to the point where it made sense to expand to more fixed locations. There is a recognition that ministers, elders, and deacons can only properly oversee so many people before it becomes a burden on them and the members in the local church. There are also those who then fall through the cracks because there are too many sheep and not enough shepherd eyeballs to go around. Generally speaking, in church history that number was around two hundred which in our case was true with Clover ARP Church and Crowders Creek ARP Church, but it also included a geographic reality as seen in the way Boyce Memorial ARP Church in Kings Mountain, NC and Smyrna ARP Church were daughtered out of Bethany. The decision was made in these four examples by the elders at Bethany in consultation with the Presbytery to take our local congregation and split it for the good of the souls gathered here. As you see from the DCG it was primarily so that all parties would then properly receive the ordinances as belong unto them and they could rightly be able to discharge mutual duties for one another. There is a beating heart concern for all to be blessed.

Let’s circle back for a second to this idea of fixed congregations. Simply put that means to refer to buildings where people gather. In England and Scotland back in those days it was not out of the ordinary for there to be a main building in the big city and then have what were variously referred to as chapels of ease out in the country. The use of the word ease is meant to convey the idea that it was easier and more convenient to get to on a Sunday morning and evening instead of trudging all the way into town. There is a pastoral concern here present in the DCG that everyone regardless of location have somewhere nearby where they can be spiritually fed and taken care of and not there then be a burden on them, especially those with young children and older members.

There is a sense in which the idea is that every piece of land would be covered by the gospel and its preaching by duly-called and equipped pastors as well as that God would see the material needs of a local community assisted by the diaconal ministries of that congregation. That kind of parish ministry idea presented here in the DCG is something worthwhile for us to consider again.

In closing, our local situation every person knows this as the Bethany community. Our local public elementary school is called Bethany Elementary. We already have the hardest part of a parish taken care of, and that is the name. Imagine if you will what effect we could have on those gathered around us if we took seriously what the directory is envisioning for how a church should be set up and operated. It is worth remembering that what we have in this document is a forward-looking imaginative and hopeful ideal of how not only a local area, but an entire nation would and could be blessed by the presence ministry of the body of Christ. Think about your own area and what difference could be made if we treated everyone around us as a part of that parish and a soul worth loving and caring for. We’d no doubt need more chapels of ease in York County, SC, Gaston County, NC, Cherokee County, SC, and Cleveland County, NC for sure.

Read This:

https://westportexperiment.com/2021/04/11/collateral-repair

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church