“A Conservative Shift”

Sunday, November 16, 2014

     My wife and I are members of a church of Christ, the kind that has a fellowship hall, youth minister (and stuff like that), but no instrumental music (or anything like that).  My point is, my wife and I have become a little uncomfortable with this zeal and not being able to find the authority for these things.  We went to a very conservative type of church of Christ, like your congregation (from what I gather from y'all’s answers). There is more to it than that but, my question is: what can we expect with a change from a "liberal" type of church of Christ to a "conservative" church of Christ?

Sincerely,
Motivated To Move

Dear Motivated To Move,

Oftentimes, the worship service at liberal congregations doesn’t seem all that different from the worship service at conservative ones, but the principles behind why they each do what they do is vastly different.

The fundamental difference between the more conservative congregations and the more liberal ones is how closely they adhere to the Bible pattern.  In a conservative congregation, you will see the focus of the church being upon preaching the truth to the lost, teaching the saved, and carrying for needy saints – that’s it.  A conservative congregation believes that the church is sufficient to do God’s work, and they shouldn’t delegate that work out to another organization like a missionary society.  Conservative congregations support preachers directly, and they send funds directly to care for other needy christians… just like the Bible pattern.  This is why conservative congregations are sometimes referred to as ‘non-institutional’.  They don’t believe any other institution should take the place of the church – not a missionary society, not a federation of congregations pooling their funds, not a group of preachers controlling the direction of multiple churches.

The other thing that you will see is that a conservative congregation believes that there is a difference between individual responsibilities and congregational responsibilities.  Individuals have the responsibility to spend time together and socialize with other christians.  Individuals have the responsibility to do good to all mankind and be involved in their community as helpers of the poor and friends to strangers (Gal 6:10).  The church has the responsibility to be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15).  You won’t see the church using its resources (including its building) for purely social activities such as potlucks – it is our responsibility as individuals to show hospitality (Heb 13:2).  You also won’t see the church getting caught up in secular charity activities like food pantries for the poor or community activism – it is our responsibility as individuals to effect change in our communities and help our neighbors. When we blur the lines between what the church should be doing and what individual christians should be doing, we get into all sorts of trouble.  Conservative congregations do their best to keep those lines as distinct as the Bible does.

In short, a conservative congregation will always show you Bible authority for what it does.  We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent (Rev 22:18-19).

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