Section 9. The Church

The Church believes:

a. that the Church, the body and espoused bride of Christ, its Head, is a spiritual organism composed of all believers from Pentecost to the Rapture who have been born again by the Spirit of God and baptised by Him into the body of Christ  (John 1:12,  1 Corinthians 12:12-14;  2 Corinthians 11:2;  Ephesians 1:22, 5:23-29; Colossians 1:18;  Hebrews 12:22).

b. that the New Testament stresses the primacy of the local church in personal nurturing and evangelism, and that the believer’s work for God should be local church centred.  (Matthew 18:17;  Acts 9:31;  14:23, 15:41;  Romans 16:1;  1 Corinthians 1:2;  16:1;  16:19; Revelation 1:4;  Psalms 92:13).

c. the New Testament teaches that believers are to establish and maintain local churches to provide Christian nurture, fellowship, worship and preparation.  The local church is a congregation of baptised believers, associated by doctrinal statement of faith and fellowship of the Gospel;  observing the ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws;  exercising the gifts, rights and privileges invested in it by His Word;  that it has the absolute right to self-government by the Holy Spirit, it is answerable only to Christ, and that In all matters of membership, policy, discipline and benevolence, the will of the local church is final. We believe in the congregational form of church government.

d. in the absolute separation of church and state. (Matthew 22:21).

e. that there are two church ordinances:  Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that the Pastor and or some other person authorised by the church shall administer the ordinance of baptism by a single immersion in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that baptism sets forth in a beautiful and solemn way our faith in the crucified, buried and risen Saviour, with its effect in our life and death to sin and resurrection to a new life. (Matthew 28:19,  Mark 1:9,  John 3:23;  Acts 8:36-39; Colossians 2:12).

f. that the bread and fruit of the vine (non-alcoholic) in the Lord’s Supper are symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ; that in no sense is the Lord’s Supper a sacrifice or continuation of Calvary’s Sacrifice; that it is a memorial of that finished sacrifice; that no change takes place in the nature of the elements during the course' of their administration; that those who worthily partake, feed by faith upon Christ crucified and all the benefits of His finished work. (Matthew 26:26-28; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23-3

g. that there are two offices of leadership in the local church, Pastor(s) and Deacons (Philippians 1:1); and that the titles pastor, elder and bishop refer to different aspects of the same office (Acts 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5-7). We believe the phrase “Husband of one wife” in reference to these offices and other positions of leadership means - married only once, I.e. not divorced (1 Timothy 3:2; 3:12; 5:9; Titus 1:6).

h. that other areas of' local church leadership shall be in complete harmony with the requirements of a deacon and pastor as recorded in the Word of God and Section 11. ii-iv, namely, blameless, not divorced or married to a divorced person or separated from spouse, an abstainer from alcoholic beverage, smoking, cinema, etc. as well as serious in his demeanour, who has a reputation of consistent good behaviour, without criminal indictment pending, hospitable, not an aggressive person who engages in physical fights, not a greedy person but rather is generous, who rules his own house well having his children in subjection and those children of age are believers in Christ;  whose spouse is wholeheartedly supportive of the leadership role and who by faithful menial labour toward Christ and the saints has established his consistency of faith, and above all that such leaders be distinguished as soul winners thus perpetuating the goal of the church to win the lost to Christ.

i. that with regards to leadership, the divorce issue is a very difficult one facing the local church today as it is the duty of the leaders to uphold the high Biblical standards in this area.  When one truly repents, “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son cleanses from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  This includes adultery, divorce, immorality before marriage and all other sins so prevalent at this hour.  However, in the local church as in Old Testament Israel (see Leviticus 21) certain of these sins do preclude a person from taking an active leadership role.  We, therefore, believe that in addition to the pastors and deacons, areas of clear leadership (i.e. Music Director, Teachers, etc). in the church should be limited to those who do not have a divorce in their background, i.e. neither they nor their spouse have been divorced.

We give the following reasons for this:

(1) The clear statements in Scripture on the matter Matthew 5:32;  19:9;  Luke 16:18;  Romans 7:2, 3; 1 Corinthians 7:10, 11; Leviticus 21:7, 13, 14, etc).

(2) Though forgiven and cleansed, divorce sometimes breeds a long-term instability in the home and individual. It is necessary that local church leadership be under-girded by a stable home background.

(3) It Is important that church leadership today take a clear and open stand on what the Bible teaches about these things.  By the nature of the case it is difficult for those who have been divorced to do this.

(4) If we in our generation do not uphold the highest standards then certainly those who follow us will not. In our desire to be compassionate and not offend it is possible to weaken the entire leadership fabric of the local church.

Having said this, we wish to make it clear that the Great Commission to serve and to take the Gospel to the entire world is given to every Christian who is humbly walking with the Lord, regardless of what the past may have been. It is also incumbent upon the local church to direct believers who have experienced these ravages in the past toward a Biblical home life in the present.

j. that the great overriding task of the local church is world evangelism and discipling of believers; that the emphasis is to be placed on personal conversion; and that no humanitarian, philanthropic or physiological schemes may be substituted for the preaching of the Cross (Matthew 28:18-20;  Acts 1:8;  8:4;  Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 2:2).

k. that the church emphasises the singing of the great hymns in its services, and at a time when much so-called Gospel music has become worldly and sensual, we will seek to build a love for the God-honouring hymns of our Christian heritage (Ephesians 5:19;  Colossians 3:16; Revelation 5:9;  Psalms 47:7).