Out With the Old?: Why We Still Need Church Covenants

  • by Jody Sledge
  • Friday, June 26th, 2009
  • Series: Committed To One Another: A Study Through Our Church Covenant

We live in a day when the old seems useless. I have a closet full of old computer monitors and a laptop that looks more like a complete IT unit than something I’d throw in a backpack and pull out at Starbucks – it runs Windows 95. Most people would laugh at anyone who still has an old analog “block” cell-phone. And what about tapes? My cassette single of M.C. Hammer’s Can’t Touch This might be the most useless belonging I own.

But it’s not only old technology and media formats that seem useless. Any old way of thinking belongs to a by-gone era of intolerance, one that we have moved well beyond. Any old way of living must be rejected as prudish and unenlightened. And any old way of valuing cannot be relevant. For a progressing society must value the new and original.

Sadly, much of this thinking has entered into the Christian community. Why must we do church like we always have? becomes the mantra of a community obviously influenced by its culture. RA’s, GA’s, Sunday School, membership, preaching, and covenants – these seem about as relevant to the modern Christian community as does a tape deck in a new car. Don’t give me preaching. Give me dialogue. Authentic community is what we need, not rules and regulations. Forget this talk about sin and judgment and hell. People need a Jesus who will love them and accept them no matter what. And don’t look to the cross for some masochistic, primitive payment for sins. Rather, see Jesus – the great Hero – giving us the inspiration to do heroic things for humanity.

This doesn’t sound like Biblical Christianity. Not at all.

Must we get rid of the old? Can we not learn from those who have gone before us? Is there not value in the truths and practices that have been treasured since the earliest days of the church? One such practice is the covenanting of a local church body. While there may be no explicit examples of church covenants in the Bible, it can be easily argued that they still, as old and out-dated as they seem, are tremendously beneficial to the life and health of a local congregation. Here are three quick reasons why:

1. A church covenant promotes holiness and love.

I would hope that any follower of Christ would agree that believers are to live holy lives marked by the greatest of virtues, love. Peter calls us to holiness because the God we serve is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). The Holy Spirit commands us in the book of Hebrews to strive for the holiness without which we cannot see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). Jesus tells us that others will know that we are his disciples by the ways in which we love one another (John 13:35). In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul exhorts us that any action, as good as it may be, is nothing if it is without love. For only hope, faith, and love remain. And the greatest is love.

A church covenant promotes these things. Sure a believer can be holy and love the brothers without a covenant. But when we come together and make a covenant, before Christ and one another, we are committing ourselves to live as we are called. We are expressing a desire to be devoted to the actions and affections of a holy and loving life. It's easy to understand what things should be done. A church covenant brings us to a place where we are committed to doing, not just knowing (James 1:22).

2. A church covenant provides accountability.

It would seem that the idea of accountability is completely gone from the mindset of the contemporary church. My Christian walk is between me and Jesus. Who are you to judge? In an individualistic age, many of us have bought into the thinking that what I do is my own business.

But this isn't the teaching of Christ. Jesus tells us to confront those who have sinned against us that we may "gain" them back to forgiveness and fellowship (Matt 18:15).  Paul commands us to restore gently a brother who is caught in a transgression (Gal 6:1). Christ tells us in Hebrews that the church is to submit to the pastors because they are watching over souls (Heb. 13:17). A church covenant provides the basis upon which we can hold one another to the standards of the Christian life. Without a covenant someone could just leave and go to another church that might not be as willing to hold them accountable. A covenant binds us together and calls us into account.

3. A church covenant proclaims the glory of Christ.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that Jesus has given himself up for the church that he might cleanse her and present her in splendor (Eph. 5:25-27). The idea here is that of a radiant bride - one that glows with the glory of her husband. Just as Jesus is the radiance of the glory of the Father (Heb. 1:3), so too the church shines with the glory of Christ. The church, as the bride of Christ, must live in such a way that the honor and glory of Jesus is proclaimed to the world.

We have seen above that the church covenant binds believers together. Listen to Jesus as he prayed for the church: "The glory that you [the Father] have given to me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you love me," (John 17:22-23). When the church lives together in harmony and love, she proclaims the glory of Christ. And a covenant helps us to do just that.

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit give us grace to promote holiness and love, to provide accountability for one another, and to proclaim the glory of Jesus throughout all the world. Amen.