Foundations of Reformed Church Polity: The Rhyme and Reason of the Order

Elders and deacons would be wise to review this book upon commencing their service. Ministers of Word and Sacrament would be wise to review this book regularly, not only for themselves but also if they are serving within a church, with their consistories. It is only upon routine engagement with the complicated interconnections of theology and polity that the church can most fully be the church and live out its mission on earth. If we don’t know what constitutes us, and maybe more importantly, why it constitutes us, we devolve and are tempted to consider the church order simply a rulebook, which gets in the way of ministry.

This book provides an example of the real reason that we study church polity. We study church polity not because we like rules, or want to prevent change, or stand in the way of things, but because we love the church and how we do things and why we do things is just as important as what we do. Because the church is made up of people who live in the world, very few things are predictable. More often than not in the life of the church, things come up for which there is no clear right answer. Sometimes our job is not to find the right answer, but to find the best out of many possibilities, or—as is often the case—the least bad option. We do this by finding the values that are expressed in the Constitution and trying to, as faithfully as we can, apply them to the situation at hand.

There are two levels when it comes to understanding the church order. The first level is knowledge. Knowing what is in the church order and knowing where to turn in the book for the answer. Knowledge can be gained fairly easily and quickly. But the deeper level is understanding. Understanding is not just knowing the regulations in the book, but also the logic of the order, the “why” that sits below the surface. And it is this that is important for trying to use the church order in the life of the church. Very few things happen “by the book,” and we cannot force life to fit into the book. The church order serves the church, the church doesn’t serve the order. This doesn’t mean that we should just permit anything and everything. But the order invites us to be thoughtful in how we operate. Just as important, perhaps even more important, than the answer with which we come up, is how we got there: the leaps and assumptions, the rationales and logic, the theological reflection, and the practical accommodations.