Congregationalism doesn't stop at 8:00 p.m.

Congregationalists claim that local churches are ultimately responsible for their membership, discipline, and doctrine. But what does that mean? Are church members responsible for only a portion of the life of the church, while pastors handle the rest? If we as members vote according to biblical principles at membership meetings, are we fulfilling our congregational responsibility? Does «membership, discipline, and doctrine» require more than just saying «yes» or «no»?

Church meetings are the best place to see congregationalism in action. The entire church carries out its responsibility by accepting new members and expelling others. But in the life of the church, these rare meetings can seem quite insignificant. What, after all, is the church doing when it meets for prayer and worship? Besides, what happens the other 300 days of the year? How does congregationalism work then? Isn’t it true that congregational churches are effectively subject to pastors, except for the 12 times a year when we vote to accept new members or discipline others?

Our purpose is not to examine the relationship between the authority of pastors and the ultimate authority of the church. Bobby Jamison has explored this issue elsewhere. Pastors are a good and valuable gift to the church, and we should submit to them according to their authority. However, the purpose of this article is to argue that when we say that the church has ultimate earthly responsibility for the membership, discipline, and doctrine of the church, we do not mean simply that the church (members) have authority over a certain part of the life of the local church, while the pastors handle the rest. Rather, the responsibility of the entire church for membership, discipline, and doctrine encompasses all church activities.

Congregationalism is not simply a governance structure that is activated at the members’ meetings and deactivated after they are over. Church-wide oversight of the membership, discipline, and doctrine of the church must be ongoing. It must shape and inform how pastors continually govern the church. It must encourage members to care for themselves and nurture one another. One of the great benefits of congregationalism is that it forces members to remember that being responsible for other Christians is not just a useful thing to do, like eating vegetables; it is what makes us the church.

Congregationalism means that all members oversee the entire life of the church, all the time.

Membership and discipline

Part of the problem is that we often fall into the trap of thinking that the regulation of membership, discipline, and doctrine only applies to particular events in the life of the church, not to its general order and life. In other words, if the ultimate authority over «membership, discipline, and doctrine» means only the «vote» (pardon our Western church context) that the church takes to admit someone into membership, expel someone, or approve a statement of faith, then it is understandable why it might feel as if the congregational system only makes small changes to the church body a few times a year.

But if a church accepts someone into membership, it is responsible for overseeing, encouraging, and disciplining that member of the church long after the membership meeting is over. The church (its members) take responsibility for that person’s daily faithfulness as part of its stewardship. The authority to bind and loose is not limited to the one-time events of accepting or excluding people from the church.

In other words, voting to admit a member into the church is more like a marriage than it is the election of the next elected official. Marriage includes the event of a wedding, but that event initiates the daily commitments and responsibilities that the two parties now have to each other. When a church accepts someone into membership, it takes on the daily responsibility for that member’s meetings, prayers, and discipleship during the week and at meetings. When a church expels someone from membership, She is responsible for the daily, to treat that person as a tax collector and call him to repentance. Therefore, congregational authority over membership and discipline is not just a one-time event but a daily responsibility.

Doctrine

But what about doctrine? Is the church’s authority over church doctrine expressed only in a one-time vote to confirm the church’s creed or in disciplining false teachers? That is certainly part of the equation. But the role of the entire church in overseeing the church’s doctrinal teaching cannot be reduced to just one event.

For example, the church (its members) is responsible for affirming, expecting, and upholding sound doctrine—giving double honor to those who do it well (1 Tim. 5:17). In addition, the church must continue to live out the theological commitments of the church, apply them in practice, live them out, and help others live accordingly. Although we often think of preachers as the only ones who «do theology» in meetings, in reality the church is responsible for affirming sound doctrine in weekly sermons and then saying to one another, «Let’s put this into practice! Let’s help one another apply these truths and walk in them!» As stated in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, listening to a sermon is a theological activity that consists of affirming or rejecting the content of the doctrine.

Everything else

This still leaves the question: What about the rest of the life of the church? What do things like budgets, Sunday school lessons, small group strategies, missionary work, and other ministries of the church have in common with membership, discipline, and doctrine? Are they outside the responsibility of the entire church?

Not quite. All these good and necessary "things" that are an integral part of church life are ultimately expressions of the theological commitments of the church. While the connection may be more or less direct, all these things require the practical application of church doctrine (or its functional denial!).

• Sunday schools are an extension of the church's teaching ministry, so the observations about the doctrine of teaching remain relevant.
• Budgets reflect the theological commitments of the church.
• Small group strategies express theological priorities and goals.
• Missionary strategies reveal a range of theological beliefs.

We are not calling for democratic chaos. Pastors should lead and govern. But while pastors may appoint Sunday school teachers and decide what curriculum to use, the church (its members) are still responsible for evaluating, confirming, and encouraging each other in teaching, and for possibly using their «emergency» powers to respond to false teachers. Not every member should actively participate in budgeting. But the church (its members) should take responsibility for reviewing, approving, and sacrificially funding the church budget or using their veto and demanding revisions so that the budget is more in line with the church’s theological commitments. The church (congregation) is like the engine in a car. Pastors can step on the gas and steer, but if the engine is not running, the car will not move.

In other words, congregationalism does not mean that every member of the church must be involved in everything the church does, but it does mean that the members of the church as a whole must take responsibility for what the church does (the lives of the members), what it teaches (doctrine), and how it serves (doctrine through the members in practical life).

Membership, discipline, doctrine—that is the whole life of the church.

From policy to practice

So how do you get the church (its members) to take responsibility for the entire life of the church? Something like a question and answer time with the members or a Monday evening church building class might be helpful, but simply creating more events on the church calendar won’t solve the problem. More events won’t help members fulfill their responsibilities every day.

More fundamentally than any vote, Congregationalism is about a church member taking the initiative to read the Bible with a new convert. It is about a church member who, out of his own pain over the consequences of sin in the church, calls another member to repentance. It is about a church member who uses the church(es) to pray for his unbelieving colleagues. Any church leader in any church organization values such things. But only Congregationalism recognizes that such actions are the essence of what makes a group of Christians a church.

Such a living, breathing congregationalism requires effort. There is no shortcut to training a church to assume and fulfill its divine responsibility for the entire life of the church. That is what pastors are for—to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:12). Such training and equipping is a long, slow, and sometimes frustrating process. And even after it is established, it takes ongoing work to maintain such vitality.

When you reduce congregationalism to just membership meetings, you deprive yourself of many of the blessings the Lord intends to give His church through good church organization.