| HOFCC Visitor's Booklet: Church Polity |
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| Thursday, 20 July 2006 | |
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The following is provided to help our visitors understand a few of the Biblical principles that most effect our local church.
The Purposes of Christ’s Church Christ’s church exists to worship God corporately, to nurture fellow believers in the obedience of faith and to proclaim the Gospel of God’s grace to the world. These three purposes are accomplished under the oversight of a plurality of local Elders and Deacons. Church leaders are not intended to do the works of ministry on behalf of the people of God (Eph. 4:11-14). (Elders are called “overseers,” not “over doers!”) Instead, leaders are to use their offices to equip God’s people to provide the ministry as a life-style. (1 thess. 4:9-12). A Plurality of Local Elders “Be examples to the flock...” (1 Peter 5:3) The most important ministry of Elders is to be examples of sound doctrine in action. This is why the qualifications for church Elders (1 Tim. 3:1-15) are based on a man’s ability to manage his own household well. In the context of that life example, through ministry hospitality, each Elder is best able to teach sound Bible doctrine. The Role of Deacons Deacons are ministers of mercy. They have been commissioned, under the oversight of our Elders, to respond to needs on behalf of our church. They serve God in many ways — opening and closing facilities, cleaning up, organizing the rest of us to serve, etc, but their primary role is to identify need and fill them by organizing Productive Fellowship activities and dispersing financial assistance. If you have a need, or are aware of a need, please contact us. The Importance of the Christian Household in the Local Church The Christian household is the primary embassy of the kingdom of God and the primary training ground for local church leadership. It is also the social and economic vehicle God has chosen to plant new local churches at home and abroad. As such, it becomes strong by exerting itself in a life-style of ministry. Unfortunately, for most families in the developed nations, the home has become a place to go when nothing else is open. Responsibilities that God intended to be fulfilled by each household, such as child-training, education and hospitality, have been transferred out of the home into churches, schools and businesses. In the churches Sunday schools, youth groups, and other age-segregated programs attempt to do for families what God intended each household to do for its own members. This further weakens families by allowing them to avoid the very activities that would make them strong and effective for God. Families are restored by returning obediently to their responsibilities. Noble Institute: Our Study Group for Emerging Church Leaders New leadership for a reproducing local church emerges from among the godly men of each new congregation. Though Bible college and seminary can be helpful, formal training alone cannot satisfy all the Biblical qualifications for church leadership (see 1 Tim. 3:1-7). The basic qualifications are developed simply by “walking with the wise” through a season of participation in one’s local church: learning how to manage one’s own household well, faithfully attending the Sunday gatherings, building up the body in love, participating in prayer, Bible study and evangelism, and walking in fellowship with the current leadership. To facilitate this process we have established Noble Institute, a weekly study group for aspiring church leaders. Christian men (ages 18 and up) who have been members of HOFCC for over a year and who have a holy desire to study and teach God’s Word in some public ministry are invited to apply at the end of each quarter. The pulpits of our various congregations are filled each week by seasoned members of this study group, and from their number our new church leaders normally emerge. Why Does HOFCC Focus So Much Ministry Attention on Men? At HOFCC we hold the “complimentarian view” of gender roles. Men and women are wonderfully different by God’s design. A man is the head of his wife just as Christ is the head of the church and God the Father is the head of Christ. There is nothing demeaning or abusive about these complementary roles of loving headship and respectful submission. We teach that men need to be respected by the women in their lives in order to play their strategic part in God’s plan for the good of all. Likewise, women need to be loved, cherished, protected and provided for by the men in their lives in order to play their parts in God’s plan for the good of all. In this, God is not putting women down, but He is raising men up for the good of all. We find in Scripture and in practical experience that most men by reason of their role in the home can influence their families in ways that most wives and children are unable. When a family man is converted he often brings his entire household with him to Christ. Sometimes his entire social network as well. As he grows in grace and becomes more the man his wife and children have always needed and wanted him to be, he begins to provide the ministry and leadership his family so badly needs. Therefore, the best and most biblical thing we can do for the salvation and pastoral care of women and children in any community is to save the souls, inspire the hearts and inform the minds of all the men in their lives. Truly Christian men turn faithfully to serve their wives and children as God intended— and in doing so our evangelism succeeds, our church culture becomes all the more exciting for men and loving toward women, and our entire local church thrives under the Lordship of Jesus! |