June 28, 2024

Church: Universal and Local

In the early Christian creeds we find the phrase “one holy, catholic (or universal), and apostolic church.” The implication is that from the beginning the Christian churches were unified and unanimous in their understanding of what the apostolic faith was. One should understand that the creeds were written because at that time there were Christians who didn’t believe those things. The creeds were a line in the sand: if you agreed you were orthodox, if you did not you were incorrect and possibly even dangerous or heretical.

Although we understand the diversity, even divisions, in the Church centuries later, we might still assume there was unanimity in belief and practice in the earliest Christian communities. This is not the reality, however. Churches in the New Testament era had their own local practices, customs, and beliefs. Think for a moment about how different two churches would be if one only had the Gospel of Mark and the Epistles of Peter, while another church only had the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John. We often forget that the scriptures we claim are authoritative are the result of a few centuries of sharing, comparing, and assessing the earliest Christian documents, and doing the same with ritual practices, and ultimately the creeds. The compiling a canon, or the authoritative text of Christian writings, are one of the ways the larger universal church was defined and established.

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27) The Apostle Paul wrote this to a particular church community about their experience as a gathered community of Christians in the first century. He was not speaking of the universal church. This makes complete sense, of course, as the majority of Christians experience the Christian faith through a local congregation to this day. There are some people who do work for the larger expressions of the church: conferences and dioceses, denominations, and ecumenical organizations. And we should be glad they do, it is hard and often thankless work. Yet these organizations do things local churches cannot do on their own. Still, in my opinion, the more important work is done by the local congregation, which is the foundation of all other forms of ministry. If local churches struggle, the larger Church will struggle.

As I said at our recent congregational meeting, you are a delightfully and uniquely gifted congregation. Through God’s Spirit, you have created a loving, accepting, and caring community which people notice when they visit. As we also learned at this meeting, we have been graced with gifted and hard-working women and men who have made our church’s ministries what they are today. We are a healthy, vital, and growing church because of that.

But not all churches can say this. As Pastor Lauren, Rita Swanson, Aaron Nilson, and myself attend the Covenant’s annual meeting, I am reminded that Christian denominations in the West are in decline because local congregations are struggling. Each church has its own particular ministry, its own particular place in the world, and its own particular view of the world. So when we gather in Cincinnati we are representing you, the Body of Christ at First Covenant Church, Seattle. And we gather with other Covenant churches, near and far, struggling and thriving, to do the work of our larger community, the Evangelical Covenant Church, which in turn, contributes to the universal Church around the world.

But history reminds us that congregations are not identical. Each church is particular and their particularity can add to the diversity and health of the larger church. But it can also lead to tensions and even divisions. I encourage you to pray for our denomination, its leaders, and its ministries and missionaries we support. Pray as we as a denomination try to determine how to live in the tension of diversity within the unity of our communion in this polarized season. Pray for the many local expressions of the Body of Christ, which is where the work of God in the world begins. And pray it continues to begin well with us along with them. In this way, we pray, that each church’s vitality adds to the life of the larger, universal church.

With audacious hope,

~ Pastor Toddinjustices.