What’s Missing From Ch–ch?

Every so often I’ll see a sign or a facebook post asking “What’s missing from ch–ch?” The answer? “U R” (you are). It’s a mildly humorous attempt to encourage people to come back to church, or to start attending for the first time.

And yet there is something more than people missing from many churches in Scotland. What’s often missing today is what the Reformers described as the “marks” of the church. Men like John Knox identified three marks of the church: the preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline. In other words, a church is not just an organisation that calls itself a church, it must have the marks of the church. Certainly, there are other attributes of healthy churches, but these three were singled out because they are visible as well as foundational. A church missing these marks may still meet, it may still organise lots of activities — but it may not be a true church. It may once have been a true church. It might not have been turned into a restaurant or flats or a carpet showroom. People may still meet there on Sundays, sing hymns, and listen to someone speak from the front — but it may no longer Biblically qualify as a church.

These three marks weren’t just randomly plucked from the air: they were drawn from Biblical passages such as Acts 2:42 where we’re told that the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”. Read the rest of this post written by Rev. Stephen Steele for a local paper here.