Day 4

     How can we properly organize the Church for its task if we are vague about what the Church itself is?  If we are weak in the knowledge of our beliefs, we will tend to be weak in work.  Without firm beliefs, we grow vague and soft.  Without firm beliefs held in common with the Christian ages, we sever ourselves from the Apostles and our great historical roots.  Without firm beliefs we are tossed about with every wind of doctrine, and our morale rise and falls with the headlines.  And worst of all, without clear doctrine we are prone to preach ourselves.  Show me a parish that understands the sin of man, the need for redemption, an  the nature of the Church; and I will show you a missionary parish.  As P.T. Forsyth says, “One man who truly knows his Bible is worth more to a Church’s strength than a crowd of workers who do not.  If we ask the preacher, he will tell us among whom he finds his real strength.  The poverty is not in the amount of our work, but in the quality of our religion.”

            Afraid of definite doctrines, we have drifted into vagueness; and confusion resulted.  Perhaps we were not sure what missionaries were meant to do, and so sometimes, instead of the Gospel we took little more than Western civilization.  Or the Church became a social group to which it was proper to belong.  Over the parish and its inner life there burned no definition of the nature of the Church and its purpose which raised all its activities to the glory of God.

            You cannot have a good parish unless you know clearly and precisely what the Church is and for what it exists.  The Church was founded by Jesus Christ to extend His work.  It is a divine body in that it was founded by the Son of God and lives by the Holy Spirit.  It is sent inot the world as God’s instrument, God’s people, Christ’s continuing Body.  Its purpose is to win the world to God. 

            It is through the creeds and our understanding of them that we revive.  What an enormous practical difference it would make in every organization if we really became a teaching Church with clear and exact thought!

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