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Dr. Gregg Allison is teaching a course on Missional Ecclesiology at the Resurgence Training Center this fall. Find out more at ReTrain.org.

As we saw in the last post, the first three attributes of the church—doxological, logocentric, and pneumadynamic—reflect the Trinity (God/Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The other four essential attributes concern the gatheredness and sendedness of the church:

4. Covenantal: Relationship with God and Others

The church is covenantal, or gathered as members in new covenant relationship with God and in covenant relationship with each other. As for the first covenantal aspect, the new covenant:

1. is a unilateral agreement, established by God and God alone
2. creates a structured relationship between him and his covenant partners, Christ-followers “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9)
3. features binding obligations on the part of both God and his covenant partners (e.g., 2 Cor. 6:16-18; Matt. 22:37-40; 28:19-20; Gal. 6:2)
4. is sealed by two covenantal signs, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

As for the second covenantal aspect, the new covenant places church members into relationship with one another (Eph. 4:17-5:14). This aspect may be best expressed by means of a church covenant, an agreement that binds those who affirm it to life together in the church.

5. Confessional: United by Common Faith

The church is confessional, or united by both personal confession of faith in Christ and common confession of the historic Christian faith. All church members must have a credible profession of faith in Christ as they have heard about his person and work through the gospel (Rom. 10:8-13). This aspect is the act of faith that leads to salvation.

Additionally, the church as a corporate assembly regularly makes a common confession of the Christian faith (e.g., 1 Tim. 3:15-16), professing together the sound doctrine that unites the church (Eph. 4:4-6) and brings it to maturity while keeping it from going adrift (Eph. 4:13-15). This aspect is the content of the Christian faith that marks the church throughout the ages.

6. Missional: Divinely Called and Sent

As discussed above, the church is missional, or identified as the body of divinely-called and divinely-sent ministers to proclaim the gospel and advance the kingdom of God.

7. Historical Reality, Future Hope

The church is spatio-temporal-eschatological (here and not-here, or already but not yet), or assembled as a historical reality (located in space and time) and possessing a certain hope and clear destiny (eschatology) while it lives the strangeness of its existence in the here-and-now. Christians meet together to worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24) in local churches that, while they may be anywhere (that is, the location is not the issue; John 4:20-21), they are always somewhere also. This spatial characteristic means that the church takes up physical space—often a building—and prompts reflection on an important question: Does this physical space advance or obstruct what the church is seeking to be and do?

Legacy

The temporal element means that a church has a heritage that goes before the current manifestation of gathered people, and this legacy exerts a powerful influence for either good or bad on the current expression of the church. Additionally, if the Lord wills, the church will have a future that goes beyond the current manifestation of gathered people, and this hope prompts reflection on what kind of reputation this current expression of the church will bequeath to its next iteration.

Sojourners

Beyond its being “here,” the church is also “not here,” in that what the church experiences now is only a foretaste, a down payment, of a promise of yet more to come. The church lives in a “boundary epoch” between the two advents of Jesus Christ, so it is composed of strangers and aliens (1 Pet. 1:11), sojourners who are in the world and for the world, but not of the world. The eschatological church awaits a greater reality (Rev. 21-22).

These final four attributes—covenantal, confessional, missional, and spatio-temporal-eschatological—concern the gatheredness and sendedness of the church.

To be continued.

Check out some of Dr. Allison’s books:

• Getting Deep: Understand What You Believe About God and Why
• Jesusology: Understand What You Believe About Jesus and Why
• A Theology for Christian Education

He also has two new books coming out in 2010: one on the doctrine of the church and the other a historical theology which will be the companion to Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

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Check out Pastor Mark Driscoll's newest book: Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. Find out more.