The Christian student, the local church, and student Christian movements: how to demystify the place of the “para-church”?

A young Christian student in Quebec who wants to actively live his or her faith on campus faces a dilemma: how much importance should he or she give to his or her local church while studying?

For many members of churches that insist on the primacy of the local church in the life of the believer, the very legitimacy of involvement as Christians on campus (i.e. in a non-church environment), can quickly become a problem of conscience.

This may be a symptom of an unbiblical local church doctrine, insofar as it fails to recognize the Church of Jesus Christ in its universal reality. We would argue that the solution to the dilemma lies in a return to a scriptural ecclesiology (i.e. doctrine of the Church), or, to put it more accurately, a more biblically-informed ecclesiology. It’s a bit like a Christology that emphasizes Jesus’ human nature without fully appreciating his divine nature: a doctrine of the Church that fails to account for the Church’s dual nature—local and universal—inevitably leads to practical situations that don’t accord with God’s plan.

This doctrine of the two-dimensional Church is paradoxical: how can the Church be understood as local and universal at the same time? Yet, it is liberating and empowering for the believer. It sows the seeds of creativity and new initiatives: it enables every faithful man or woman to be prepared by their Church to take their place in the worldwide work of Christ, both inside and outside that Church. It enables him or her to become an autonomous actor (while dependent on Christ) in initiatives for the Kingdom of God. This person will be submissive to the authority of, and in communion with, their local Church, able to represent its community values and doctrinal convictions in their environment, without necessarily being under the immediate supervision of a Church official to legitimize their action. They will be prepared to act as a mature Christian, carrying out “[the] tasks of service for the edification of the body of Christ,” both inside and outside the meetings of the local Church (Eph 4.12b).

This emphasis on the life of the believer beyond the activities of his or her own local church does not erase the priority of life within it: it merely aims to re-establish a balance that is often neglected.

1. The Biblical Doctrine of the Church

The Church, as taught in the New Testament, is understood to be in continuity with the community of the people of God, as founded and assembled by God himself in the Old Testament. It is the qahal of God, the congregation of his unique covenant, who ‘gather’ before God on the ‘Days of Assembly’ (Deut 4:10; 9:10; 10:4; 18:16). This Hebrew term qahal is usually translated in the Septuagint as ekklesia, a term adopted by the New Testament to speak of ‘the Church’ – the people of God ‘gathered’ in exclusive covenant around Jesus Christ. We see Peter, for example, attributing the same prerogatives and responsibilities to the Church being built around Christ, as those attributed to the community of Israel (‘royal priests, a holy nation, a people redeemed [by God]’, 1 Pet 2:4-10; cf. Ex 19:5-6).

The guiding principle of this New Testament reality, already taught by Jesus himself (Matt 16:18), holds that there is only one Church, just as there is only one Israel. Jesus also prayed for its unity (John 17:1-26): not that such unity (inscribed in the very nature of the Church) was absent before men expressed it concretely, but rather that such unity (visibly lived) embodies the message, preached to the cosmos, ‘so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (John 17:21). Moreover, the letter to the Ephesians shows us that God has a concrete plan for his one universal Church in this cosmos: to unite everything under one head, Christ (Eph 1:10), using the teaching ministries in his Church as a driving force and using the believers, thus instructed (Eph 4:11-12), to bring the whole cosmos into submission.

Alongside these truths, much of what the New Testament teaches about the life of believers in the Church relates to its local expressions. Already, the existence of the many New Testament epistles, mainly intended for use in local churches and featuring important exhortatory sections addressed to their members, reminds us that the success of the local church is a priority for the apostles and their co-workers.

The doctrine of the two-dimensional Church… enables every faithful man or woman to be prepared by their Church to take their place in the worldwide work of Christ, both inside and outside of the Church.

Accordingly, there is a paradox, a double affirmation concerning the lived reality of the Church, which must be kept in tension – unity and plurality, local and universal.

2. Universal Church and Local Church

The primary reality of biblical ecclesiology is the universal Church. It must also be the first principle of the believer’s theological understanding of the Church. Even if life in the local Church will fill most of their time and energies (the case for most Christians), this will only be lived correctly when understood in the context of the universal Church, of which it is a local manifestation. The practice of the local Church will always have to account for the reality of the universal Church; it will never be exempt from it.

11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:11–13, NRSV)

Paul speaks here of a person’s conversion as an immersion in the one Spirit of God, which attaches the new believer to the one body of Christ – the universal Church described in its organic unity. This implies two things. First, the new convert becomes a member of the universal Church before becoming a member of a local Church, in the way that the baptism of the Holy Spirit (conversion, regeneration—the invisible reality) precedes water baptism (the visible manifestation). Second, the gift he will exercise is intended, in principle, to serve the whole body – even if, in practice, it is usually exercised in a local context.

(1) The language of the New Testament concerning the local Church reveals two important things about the universal Church:

(a) The New Testament expresses a balance between the unity and plurality of the Church of God and indicates an interpenetration of the two realities. It is, in this sense, that many people understand the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 18:19-20:

19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Noting that this teaching is part of a discourse by Jesus on the Church and its internal life, the great Reformed theologian John Murray argues that “we must affirm that wherever believers are gathered together according to the institution of Christ and in his name, there is the Church of God, and to this Church of God belong all the functions, prerogatives and promises which God has granted to the Church” (The Nature and Unity, p. 324-325 (author’s translation).

(b) At the same time, there is a certain restraint on the part of the New Testament authors in referring directly to the local Churches as ‘the Church’. It is clear – even if it is not always visible in modern translations – that the authors try to avoid expressions such as ‘Church of Corinth, Church of Antioch’, preferring nuanced formulations like “in the church at Antioch” (Acts 13:1); or “the church of God that is in Corinth” (1 Corinthians 1: 2).

(2) Two key texts that describe the organisation of the ministries of Word and service in the Church (1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4:1-16) include teaching ministries that might be called ‘inter-Church’ on their lists – for example, the roles of apostles and prophets (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11). Some might also include mention of euaggelistai, ‘evangelists’ (Eph 4:11) and didaskaloi, or ‘teachers’ (1 Cor 12:28).

The case of 1 Corinthians 12 is compelling because here Paul seeks to resolve discord within a local Church. He does so by describing the structures of the universal and the local Church in unity and continuity – their various ministries, both local and universal, at the service of the same body and infused with the same unique Spirit.

The letter to the Ephesians shows us that God has a concrete plan for his one universal Church in this cosmos: to unite everything under one head, Christ.

For the ministry of the Word, these passages suggest a scope beyond the boundaries of the local Church, able to nourish and formalise relations between local Churches. Ministerial links between Churches, and between Christians of different local Churches, are therefore also suggested.

(3) In his influential article ‘The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission’ (1974), Ralph Winter argues that, from the time of the Apostolic Church, two structures coexisted to ensure the growth and continuity of the Christian movement. First, a basic ‘generalist’ structure – the local Church, inspired by the Jewish synagogue – aiming for longevity over time, bringing together in a given locality all the diversity of believers (with a multiplicity of generations, ethnic groups, standards of living, professions, etc.), and linked to the other Churches. Second, a more specialized structure, the missionary team (in the New Testament, mainly Paul’s team, but also others, such as Barnabas’). We tend to focus solely on the fact that the first missionary team (Paul’s) was mandated by the local Church at Antioch (Acts 13.1-3), without too much attention paid to the signs of its internal structure or functioning. We can see, however, that this other structure was self-organising. It rapidly developed an autonomy of operation with respect to the local Church that sent it, was financially autonomous when necessary, and was associative and selective in its membership. No longer are its members ‘all the local saints,’ but rather a sub-group of Christians who are fit, qualified, and called. They will eventually be selected from several original Local Churches and must, in order to participate in the mission of this structure, make an additional commitment to the basic spiritual commitment made upon joining the Local Church (Ralph D. WINTER, “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission”, Missiology 1974/2, p.123). This second structure creates ‘horizontal’ relationships between churches, from member to member. Winter calls these two structures modalities and sodalities, respectively, and argues that periods of significant missionary growth in the Church’s history have almost always involved these entities working in tandem.

If, then, biblical teaching insists on the importance of both the local Church and inter-Church structures as two visible manifestations of the one Body of Christ, it becomes necessary to recognise that this double priority must guide us in our Church practice today.

3. Conclusions

In this article we have explored the biblical doctrine of the Church with a view to demystifying the existence, in the contemporary Christian movement, of two distinct manifestations of the Church: the local community and the inter-church structure. After considering the ‘two natures’ of Christ’s Church and some of the practical implications of this duality, we hope to have established the biblical validity of those two manifestations, as well as the Lord’s imperative for us to work towards their unity. We have also tried to demonstrate the legitimacy of inter-church structures that unite believers of different denominations in a common task, such as Christian student movements like GBUC. They are part of the reality of the Body of Christ and are useful to its mission in the world. We also hope that our efforts at reflection will be useful and will contribute to an ever more thoughtful approach to our missionary mandate: that of ‘bringing the whole Gospel, from the whole Church to the whole world’.