Urban Church Planting

Thoughtful piece by David Broodryk on David Watson's blog on the dynamics of urban church planting - especially looking at the important question of what "is" a church.

The concluding definition Broodryk offers, after considering the dynamic of smaller homogeneous groups which might be considered too small and unstable to be described as churches in their own right, is as follows:

“Church is the collection of baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in a given locality (city or network), who gather regularly (in one group or several) for the purposes of worship, discipleship and nurture, and who depart those gatherings with the intention of obeying all the commands of Christ, in order to transform their families, communities and cities.”

There are omissions in this definition, of course. One addition I would want to make straight away is to add the phrase "who have received the Holy Spirit" after the phrase "Lord Jesus Christ" and before the phrase "in a given locality." I would also make the intention of the believers' obedience more explicitly focused on the glory of God, with any attendant cultural impact as secondary.

I appreciate, having said this, that Broodryk is not writing a theological treatise but a summary that addresses the specific and limited question of whether a church has to meet all-together in order to truly be a church.

Very interesting article, in my opinion.