Ministry Churches

[OBW]

Because the "new rules" were the ones they wanted to uphold, not the old. They talked of the old, but demanded the new. They spoke of oneness on ground but demanded oneness of minister and ministry.

But one of the most serious flaws of the LCM is that they see the oneness of the church as something other than Christ. Ground and even minister and ministry are other than Christ. That is why denominations are more one with other denominations than the LCM is with anyone, even the splinters within their own sect.

With some exceptions, the denominations do not consider each other to be non-churches or just barely marginal. They may hold to different understanding of certain doctrinal issues, but confess to the same Lord and God and therefore recognize the thing that makes them one.

In the meantime, the LCM has changed the ground rules and made what isn't even a point of doctrine into the thing that either unites or divides, therefore there can never be any kind of oneness with them because they refuse all who do not drop everything and meet with them. There is no ground in the Bible. Just the foundation. And it is Christ. It is not cities, dirt, or any other natural or human construct.

If cities are the ground of the church, then it is bound to the whims and dictates of humans — often unregenerate humans — who declare the boundaries of their cities. If it is Christ, then there is no boundary of a church. Any assembly is a fluid as those who meet. And when Christians meet as church, there is church. (I do not subscribe to the minimalist view that an impromptu meeting of 2 or 3 Christians is automatically church, though it can be. There is more to the assembly than just gathering.)