Confessions, Covenants & Constitutions | 9Marks Journal

Jonathan Leeman; Greg Gilbert; Andrew Nichols; Matt Schmucker; Mark Vroegop; Curtis Hill; Mike McKinley; Bob Johnson; Aaron Menikoff; Joel Kurtz

ISBN 10: 1536898007 / ISBN 13: 9781536898002

Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1536898007I2N00

Synopsis:

“Scripture is the only document our church needs!” Have you ever thought that?Okay, fine. But I have a few questions for you. First, who exactly would you say Jesus is, and can I get baptized in your church if I, like, totally disagree with you on his divinity?Also, is it okay for me to call myself a member of your church and—you know—never, ever attend?And—last question—who in your church, generally speaking, decides who the pastors are? I mean, does the church just kinda know? The Spirit tells them? Or, maybe, you personally speak for the Spirit!Yes, Scripture should be a church’s sole authority. But the confessions, covenants, and constitutions of a church articulate what the members agree the Scripture teaches on what they should believe, how they should live, and how they should be governed.Church documents are a prosaic topic, to be sure. But they facilitate unity. They protect a church from being governed by the passions of the moment. And they force a congregation and its leaders to be careful, deliberate, reflective, and, hopefully, biblical. Not bad, for a boring old administrator’s job.To put it another way, church documents are kind. It is kind to tell people what you think up front. It is kind say what you will expect from them or how disagreements will be resolved.Imagine a husband and wife, a year into marriage, realizing they have dramatically different views about commitment and faithfulness because they never bothered with vows. “Ah, that’s just paperwork!” Or, imagine your boss asking you to do one thing when you thought your job was something else because you never had a job description.This is what church documents are for—letting everyone know what their job is, and what covenant faithfulness looks like.Believe it or not, we at 9Marks get questions about church documents perhaps as much as any other topic. And my guess is that a lot of our pastor-readers are not surprised. They know how crucial good documents are.For reasons like these, we offer this edition of the 9Marks Journal to help you think through different aspects of confessions, covenants, and constitutions, as well as a couple of other documents. If you have follow up questions, try the 9Marks Mailbag, or just ask an older, wiser pastor! We pray this is useful.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Confessions, Covenants & Constitutions | ...
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: 2016
Binding: Paperback
Condition: As New
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket