"Common Roots", part IV : The Church

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part IV: “We affirm the Church as a fellowship of believers.” 

“The church is not an institution, organization, or building. It is a grace-filled fellowship of believers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. It is a family of equals: as the New Testament teaches that within Christian community there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).”

Much has been said in the preceding articles to make sufficiently clear how this Covenant affirmation comes to us by way of our pietist heritage. Pressing back against the crippling institutionalism of 17th and 18th century state-governed Lutheranism, the Pietist reformers - from Ardnt, Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf, to all those who would follow them - labored to reclaim the identity of the Church as a living fellowship of people transformed by and following after Jesus; the whole Church called into the whole mission of Christ. The defining structural elements of the pietist revival can be summed up by the following: Conversion, Colporteurs, and Conventicles.

Regarding conversion, I refer you to Parts II and III of this series, which speak to the centrality of “new birth” to both pietist and Covenant convictions. The other two elements are also closely related to much of what has come before, but warrant further clarification.

As we have seen, it was Spener who introduced the “innovation” of household-based gatherings for devotional reading of scripture and mutual edification to the fabric of what would become 17th century pietism. What he initially referred to as his “assemblies of piety” (“small group ministry” would be a close equivalent in the modern parlance), became popularly known and replicated as “conventicles” ( meaning, roughly, “assemblies”; from the latin “conventiculum”). This was, in fact, the Pietist’s most formative - and, by the state church, most strongly resisted - development within the life of the Church. An expression of a movement of the Spirit whereby common people grow hungry for active engagement with the scriptures, for intimacy in worship and depth of Christian fellowship, the purpose of the conventicle was not to separate from the institutional church, but to bring additive value to the life of discipleship between, and as distinct from, Sunday worship. As these gatherings increased in number and influence throughout Sweden, it was the through the ministry of “Colporteurs” that the flames of revival were spread and stoked.

Colporteurs (adapted from the French, “comporteur”; lit. “to bear or peddle”) initially were simply a practical solution for the resourcing of the conventicle movement. These were voluntary lay ministers who would travel from town to town distributing Bibles and tracts of various kinds. With the gradual increase of literacy in Sweden - and among the colporteurs themselves - their influence began to increase; soon serving as lay preachers, teachers, and recognized leaders of conventicles. As time went on and the conventicle movement grew more established, in spite of significant legal resistance from the state Church of Sweden, many colporteurs would go so far as to serve communion in the context of a household fellowship; viewed as a radical and dangerous move in the eyes of the establishment.

But this remains the conviction of the Covenant church as part of the legacy of our pietist forebears: the Church is not a building, an institution, or an organization of professional, ordained clergy. The Church is the living fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ, seeking the Lord and living in light of His Kingdom purposes. We must always expect and leave room for the movement of the Holy Spirit among “ordinary” people, or else we have simply crafted a well-managed religious institution rather than witnessing the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Commons holds a uniquely significant bond with the “conventicle” movement within our own structures of community life. While we continue to love and value “large format” corporate gatherings for preaching, worship, and the Lord’s Supper, the trouble with ONLY getting together in large groups is that it is hard to really get to know one another – and see genuine community develop – if we’re only seeing each other in a big room, full of activity and 100+ other folks, once a week. In the Bible - as well as in our pietist heritage - we see that the early Christian church was built upon house fellowships. They didn’t just run into one another for an hour once a week; they did life together! “Church” was spending time, sharing meals, sharing joys and struggles, studying scripture together and lifting one another up in prayer. “Church” was a space where friends in Christ could sit, learn and grow face to face, and not just side by side.

Additionally, good preaching and teaching is vital to the life and thriving of the local church. But perhaps even more important to our own growth toward Christian maturity is to be given the opportunity, experience and tools to open, read, interpret and apply the scriptures well for ourselves and in the context of our own lives. Our “Table” groups are neighborhood-centric communities of 15-20 folks, focused on shared meals, in-depth interaction with scripture, prayer, and on the daily, street-level expressions of church life. We’re so committed to the value of getting our whole community involved at this level that we give two whole Sundays a month to “Table” groups.