Church Leadership Foundations, Ecclesiology

ECCLESIOLOGY

Part of LifeandLeadership.com ministry resources on Church Leadership, Church Health and Renewal.

Introduction
Biblical Ecclesiology
Comparative Ecclesiology
Contextualized (e.g. Missional) Ecclesiology
Related Ministry Resources

Introduction

Note: This lists several ministry resources on practical theology, all of which are referenced in the index, Theology of Mission and Ministry.

LifeandLeadership.com places great importance on ecclesiology, the theology of the church. All attempts at church leadership are incomplete without it. Too many renewal models assume ecclesiology at best, and ignore it at worst. This is unfortunate. Church leaders often focus on the mechanics of doing church, and at times become overly pragmatic in adopting the newest methods. These methods are helpful, but healthy renewal should begin with biblical benchmarking on the essence of the church. We must first ask what the church is before we consider what it does. We must ask, “What is God’s intent for the church?” “What is all the activity for?” “Why is all this important?” Questions like these cannot be answered simply through mission clarification processes, many of which are consensus efforts that are only as effective as a congregation’s level of biblical maturity. The best answers to these questions require a serious look at the biblical teaching on the church, and perhaps even a survey of how believers have sought to express God’s intent throughout history. This is the contribution of ecclesiology, theology of the church.

Ecclesiologies come in several varieties, and there are many acceptable ways of classifying them. LifeandLeadership.com uses three categories — biblical, comparative, and contextualized. The largest group is the contextualized, which includes many of the missional theologies. Resources are categorized below under these divisions. Be sure and see the list of related topics at the bottom of the page.

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Biblical Ecclesiology

The most basic ecclesiologies are in-depth surveys of biblical material on the nature and purpose of the church, especially as revealed through the New Testament.

Let’s begin with two observations on biblical theologies. First, how a writer uses the biblical text reflects one’s church affiliation. For this reason, some would classify these more specifically into constructive ecclesiologies that represent a particular faith tradition — Catholic, Baptist, Free Church, Anabaptist, Church of Christ, Wesleyan, Pentecostal/Charismatic, etc. There is also the distinction between evangelical, mainline Protestant, and non-denominational discussions. This makes it important to acknowledge where an author comes from.

Second, in one sense, all good ecclesiologies are both biblical and contextualized. If by “biblical” we mean an attempt to mine out of Scripture the teaching on the nature and purpose of the church, most authors do this. Also, each person writes out of and to a specific location or context. This is an unavoidable aspect of theologizing. We all write from where we are. For example, some missional ecclesiologies purposely relate the message of Scripture to current issues of the post-Christendom era. Others simply survey and comment on the witness of Scripture relative to the church, and leave the readers to make their own applications. I have categorized the latter group as biblical ecclesiologies, and the former as contextual theologies.

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Here are a few of the better biblical ecclesiologies, with some comment on the faith tradition of the authors. I have listed them in suggested order.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community – Written out of Bonhoeffer’s experience of leading an underground seminary during the rise of the Nazi regime in pre-WWII Germany. It is one of the most inspiring pictures of Christian community ever written. As indicated above, this is a case where a biblical ecclesiology is unavoidably contextualized.
Everett Ferguson, The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today(Church of Christ) — The most systematic overview of biblical material on the nature and purpose of the church.
Christopher Wright, The Mission of God’s People – An excellent sequel to Wright, The Mission of God. Deals with the question, “What does the Bible as a whole in both testaments have to tell us about why the people of God exist?”
Ben Witheringon III, Imminent Domain: The Story of the Kingdom of God and Its Celebration (Protestant/Evangelical) — An excellent, readable primer on the meaning of the term, “kingdom of God.”
Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Protestant) — A classic survey of 96 New Testament images used to describe the church.
Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Catholic) — A classic that describes five different types of congregations according to what they offer their members spiritually and their communities missionally. Also addresses the issues of congregational culture or identity.
Markus Bockmuehl and Michael B. Thompson, Editors, A Vision for the Church, Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology(Various Backgrounds) — A unique survey of the witness of each New Testament book regarding the nature and purpose of the church.
John Stackhouse, Evangelical Ecclesiology: Reality or Illusion?(Evangelical) — An excellent collection of articles.
Mark Dever, The Church: The Gospel Made Visible. – A concise biblical ecclesiology from a Protestant, Congregational, Baptist perspective.
John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology (Baptist) — Part One is a good primer on ecclesiology.
Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, Editors, The Community Of The Word: Toward An Evangelical Ecclesiology (Evangelical) — While this probably fits just as easily in the contextualized theology category, the articles on “Locating the Church Dogmatically” and “The Church as Moral Community” are good biblical overviews.
Robert J. Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition— Attempts a Pauline theology of the church as revealed in his letters (excluding the Pastorals)
Hans Kung, The Church– A classic text that includes some helpful observations on the nature and purpose of the church.
Peter C. Phan, The Gift of the Church: A Textbook Ecclesiology in Honor of Patrick Granfield, O.S.B. (Catholic) — Includes some chapters that would address a wider audience beyond its Catholic target.

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Comparative Ecclesiologies

These compare the attempts of various faith groups to desccribe the meaning and ministry of the church. Here are a few examples:

Veli-Matti Karkkainnen, Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical, and Global Perspectives — An in-depth overview of how the major Christian traditions, leading contemporary theologians, and social and ethnic groups conceive of the church.
Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals — A comparison between three ecclesiologies represented by the traditional, pragmatic, and younger (missional) evangelicals.
Avery Dulles, Models of the Church — See description above under Biblical Ecclesiologies.

Comparative ecclesiology is very closely related to concept of congregational culture or identity which looks at the sociological and organizational ethos that emerges as each church seeks to live out its mission in a local setting.

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Contextualized (Missional) Ecclesiologies

These works contextualize God’s intent for the church into a specific setting. As stated above, all ecclesiology is contextual to some extent. Some, however, are deliberately targeted at applying the biblical witness on the church to a certain time, location, ethnic group, etc.

LifeandLeadership.com listings on contextualized ecclesiology emphasize the current missional conversation that addresses the shift in Western society in general and North America in particular away from the religiously privileged era of Christendom’s cultural dominance, and into a period where the church is culturally marginalized. The First Reads below are my top suggestions, followed by an alphabetical listing of other excellent works:

First Reads:

Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger, Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction – A balanced and responsibly written missional ecclesiology.
David Fitch, The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies – A scholarly, probing, and reasoned critique of how churches have adopted corporate models, consumer-oriented practices, and capitalistic assumptions to the point of blurring, and at times removing the biblical identity of the church.
Darrell Guder, Editor, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America — Regarded by many as the foundational articulation of the missional philosophy. Relative to ecclesiology, it represents the missional idea that we should shift away from an ecclesiocentric understanding of mission, where mission is merely an activity of the church to spread the gospel, establish European-looking churches, and inculcate the benefits of Western civilization in needy cultures. It argues a shift to a theocentric reconceptualization of mission based upon Missio Dei, the “mission of God.” The authors couch much of what they say, however, in terms of ecclesiology.
Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit— The first of a series designed for missional church development. It is “missional ecclesiology,” a theological treatise on the inherently missional nature of the church from a missional/missio Dei perspective.

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Other Excellent Volumes:

Lee Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. Second Edition – Camp deftly challenges the underlying assumptions of Americanized Christianity, arguing that in many cases it is so enculturated as to bear little resemblance to the radical discipleship presented in the teachings of Jesus.
Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society — Clapp’s special contribution is to illumine a biblically-derived redefinition of the church in the postmodern, post-Constantinian era.
Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community – A substantive, well-written development of the need for the church to recover its identity as a committed community over against the isolationist/individualist tendencies of contemporary culture.
Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, Editors, The Community Of The Word: Toward An Evangelical Ecclesiology(Evangelical) — An interesting discussion of how evangelicals must rethink their identities in the postmodern era.
Aubrey Malphurs, A New Kind of Church: Understanding Models of Ministry for the 21st Century – Malphurs brings his background as a church consultant/academic to suggest criteria for evaluating newer church models that have arisen in the late-20th and early-21st centuries, and how churches arrive at the approach that is best for their context.
Howard A. Snyder, The Community of the King: Revised Edition – His special contribution is explaining the relationship between the church and the kingdom. He emphasizes “the church as part of God’s dramatic, historic action in Jesus Christ of reconciling all things to himself, ‘things in heaven and on earth.’” (Eph 1:10)
Howard A. Snyder, Radical Renewal: The Problem of Wine Skins Today — Good for those who read The Community of the King and want to go deeper into Snyder’s thinking.
Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation – Taylor introduces three types of congregations in terms of how they respond to the presence of sin.

A closely related concept is Church Identity or Congregational Culture, which looks at the church through organizational and sociological lens to assess the unique personalities congregations develop as they seek to live missionally in their time and place.

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Related Ministry Resources

Other Ministry Resources on Theology of Mission and Ministry:

Theology of Mission and Ministry

See Other Resources on Church Leadership and Renewal:

Ministry Resources on Related Areas

See Resources on Over 100 Areas of Christian Ministry:

Ministry Resources for Church Leaders – Index

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