Of Constitutions and Congregations…

We have a members’ meeting occurring in a few weeks, on May 7th. Members’ meetings are generally for the maintenance of the local church. We talk about people, plans, and projects. We vote new members to join our fellowship and release members who are no longer involved.

But the church also maintains the purity of the doctrine of the church. That is, each member of a church is responsible to know what the church believes and for living in accordance with that doctrine. This is what we call a confession or statement of faith.

Every church has a confession, whether they write it down or not. We find it to be more instructive to write down what our church believes in order that we might partner together over those clear things. The confession of faith does not say everything. Rather, it nails down those “essentials” we must agree on if we are to partner together. Things like the doctrine of the Trinity, Justification by Faith, the Atonement, and Believers’ Baptism. This is why we ask all new members to sign the statement of faith, affirming that they agree with its teaching.

Additionally, we have a church constitution. You will find no verse in Holy Scripture that says “Thou Shalt Have a Constitution.” Rather, as a prudential and legal matter, it spells out some things that our confession doesn’t, like the way the church makes decisions, how deacons and elders are elected, and various other items that are prudential in nature.

Sunday night, after our prayer meeting, we are having a Q and A to discuss two amendments to the constitution. One is an amendment concerning deacons, the other is affirming The Nashville Statement. I want to briefly detail why these things are important and give you three reasons why you should attend the Prayer Meeting and Members’ Meeting on May 7.

1) Deacons

The church’s constitution tells us that there are two offices in the church, elders and deacons. These two offices are clearly spelled out in Scripture (1 Timothy 3). And yet, there is sometimes some lack of clarity as to how the two offices work together. How long should a deacon be a deacon? What should a deacon do? Outside of the qualifications, Scripture is fairly silent on this point.

Older confessions of faith have made the following remark, which is instructive. For example, an older Baptist confession says:

There are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

Second London Confession, 1.6

According to this confession, churches are to order the government of the church according to Christian prudence and the light of nature. This is what we are trying to do in our amendment on deacons.

We are essentially desiring to remove term limits for deacons, allowing them to serve in that capacity and assist the elders until a situation arises where they feel they should step down, or they are unable to carry out the work necessary to do the job. Since deacons at Creekside fulfill a role of service and not governance, the elders think this is a good idea. This will allow us to add and remove deacons more easily, without the daunting or disappointing reality of a three-year term limit.

Let’s face it, our hope is that anyone who serves as a deacon for one year will still be qualified to do the work in 5 years. Otherwise, we should think long and hard about installing him as a deacon at all! The elders think that this amendment to the constitution helps us work more effectively together.

But the elders do not have the power to declare changes to the constitution at will. Rather, the church must affirm any changes, which is why we are bringing it before you.

A second change will be discussed Sunday evening.

2) The second addition we want to make to the church’s documents is an affirmation of the teaching of the Nashville Statement. This is simply a statement on gender and sexuality that had broad support a number of years ago. It affirms the historic, orthodox teaching of the church as it relates to issues of gender and sexuality.

The elders believe that the Nashville Statement encompasses what we believe as a church about matters of gender and sexuality, that boys and girls are created to be boys and girls. Men and women were created differently on purpose, and this purpose is good.

The reason we are bringing this forward now is two-fold.

• 1) The conversation surrounding these things is moving at a lightning fast speed. As a reminder, President Obama was opposed to same-sex marriage in 2008. Here in 2023, the celebration of the LGBTQ agenda is priority one for the current administration. Things have changed, and we need to speak with clarity about these issues as a church 1) for Christ’s sake, 2) for the family’s sake, and 3) for the sake of our children.

• 2) Another reason for bringing this forward is that our church’s confession does not address this matter. The reason our church’s confession does not address this is that when the confession was written in 1853, no one would have thought “What is a woman?” would be a controversial claim. We think this issue is important enough to adopt a formal statement about what we believe, which we would ask our membership to support.

The elders are attempting to act in a way that is prudent and faithful, and to lead the church in the same direction.

What should you do?
1) Come to prayer meeting - beginning at 5:00pm on Sunday evening in our chapel.

2) Read the documents - available both at the church office and here on the website.

3) Come ready with questions - I am here to answer them!

4) Pray that we would act with wisdom in these and all other areas.

See you Sunday,

— Pastor Drew