Back to Church: Teaching

As we rethink church in light of this pandemic, God is giving us an opportunity to take a fresh look at the scriptures and get back to the heart of being his church.   The New Testament scriptures do not teach anywhere that we must meet in a special building and hold a church service to have real church!  The early church didn’t meet in front of a pulpit, they met around the table. 

So what according to the bible constitutes a real church meeting? So far we know the following…  

• Hebrews 10:23-25 - A church meeting is for encouraging us to be a true family, God's people in this world.   We meet to hold on to the Gospel and spur one another on to love and good works.    There is no mention of how often or any specific location only that we should meet regularly.
  
• 1Cor 11:23-26  - A church meeting remembers and proclaims Jesus. It is centred on Jesus and shaped by the Gospel.  Using the Lord’s Supper as a framework for gathering together helps keep the Gospel as the central focus of the church which is why Jesus gave us this meal to eat together.   

But what about teaching and preaching?  A key passage that gives us a window into how teaching functioned in the early church is Ephesians 4:11-16.  

"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."  

Here Paul is explaining that God, according to his plan and grace has chosen some of his followers to be leaders in planting and establishing churches (leaders like Timothy, and Titus in the New Testament). Their calling isn’t to just do ministry but to equip believers for the work of ministry (v12).

  

The vision here is for the whole church to mature, that the whole church would become ‘unified’ or one-minded in the faith,  and have a real knowledge of Christ.  This maturity happens as everyone joins in the work of ministry so that everyone is ‘speaking the truth in love’.  This is how the church build’s itself in love and becomes a greater witness and partner in the Gospel.

While The Lords Supper is primarily about remembering and proclaiming the Gospel, the teaching in the church is primarily about being equipped in life for ministry. 

Being a strong, stable, loving church doesn’t just happen magically or by hiring some superstar pastor.  It happens as the whole church is equipped.   The ministry and teaching of the word is something the whole church is called to participate in!   

• Every believer needs to be able to recognize sound doctrine, not just the pastor. In an age of mass media and thousands of conflicting messages coming at you from all over the world, how can you tell which ones are true?
  
• Every believer is to have an understanding of their ministry, the roles and responsibility and gifts that are entrusted to you by God according to his plan, not just church leaders.
    
• Every believer needs to learn to speak the truth in love, not just the preacher.  It is when each member of the church family is joined together and functioning properly that the church builds itself up in love. (v16) 

Teaching in the church is meant to function in a similar way to the teaching involved in raising a family.  We teach our children to understand right from wrong themselves, to take responsibility for their lives, and to contribute to family life and society. This kind of teaching is necessarily dynamic and interactive and not limited to a lecture format. 

A careful study of the New Testament Church reveals a more dynamic and interactive approach to teaching in the churches compared to the sermon-centred teaching in most churches today.   The early church did not gather before a pulpit, they met around the table.   They met around a shared meal which was typically followed by a more formal time of sharing, teaching and discussion.   This format created a different dynamic for teaching in the church compared to a typical Church Service today that is usually built around the delivery of a sermon by a professional speaker.    Yet no one would say that the first churches were not ‘real church’ or that their teaching was not official or effective! 

Compare the form of teaching in the church today that we have made the standard with these characteristics of Paul’s preaching and teaching ministry: 

• When Paul taught he did not focus on giving an impressive polished speech but instead spoke plainly (1Cor 2:3-5).  Teaching in the church did not depend on a dynamic speaker.
  
• He laid down a foundation of core teachings so that others in the church could learn them and use them as a foundation for teaching others (1Tim 6:3-4, 20).   Teaching in the church followed the same core principles that could be learned and used by others so that ongoing teaching did not depend on a pastor or missionary being present all the time.
  
• Paul’s teaching was not purely a monologue, it incorporated conversation (Acts 20:12, Acts 19:8-10). Teaching in the church engaged people in conversational learning.  

We need to examine our priorities and methods when it comes to teaching in the church if we are going to meet the challenges of ministry during this pandemic.  With large gatherings suspended for the foreseeable future, churches will have to transition to multiple smaller groups in order to have any kind of personal contact beyond an online broadcast.  How will we equip our people to shepherd these groups?  How will build one-mindedness across multiple groups and leaders?    We need to shift from a mindset of drawing a crowd to hear a preacher towards equipping the saints for ministry.   

This will inevitably involve more teaching in smaller groups and having others help with the teaching.  It will mean relying less on producing a sermon and more on helping people build their lives and ministry on the teaching.  What if instead of one person preparing a sermon, everyone came prepared to discuss issues related to the scripture they spent time reading and studying during the week?   Sounds to me like the difference between feeding fish to a starving man and teaching him how to fish for himself.   What if the online sermon was used more effectively and followed up with smaller group discussions about implementing the principles in life and ministry?   More than ever we will need ordered conversational learning to equip families and multiply leaders.    As each church develops new strategies, leaders need to think rightly about the whole church becoming participants in the teaching so that we are all 'speaking the truth in love'.    

Discussion Questions: 

• The early church viewed meeting all together in one place to hear a superstar preacher like Paul as a bonus while belonging to a smaller church gathering and participating in conversational learning was viewed as essential.  Yet today, many Churches in Canada have basically flipped these around. What impact does this have on equipping the saints for ministry?  On the church building itself up?  On evangelism?
  
• How could Sermons be used more effectively so that people are being equipped for ministry?  Could other valid forms of preaching and teaching be utilized? How?
  
• Why do people avoid and treat smaller church meetings and discussions as unnecessary or an optional extra?  What are we avoiding? 
  
• What will need to change in your thinking and your life in order to participate in smaller church meetings and discussions?   

For further study check out this list of books.