What Makes the Church of God the Church of God?

Starting this Sunday I will be teaching an adult class entitled What Makes the Church of God the Church of God? It is an ambitious undertaking--not only for me, but for class participants, as well. We have so many people in our congregation who have come to us from denominational churches and independent holiness churches, as well as Roman Catholic and Orthodox backgrounds.

A pastor I know once told me of his growing congregation, "I don't have any trouble bringing people into the church, but I do have trouble bringing people into the Church of God." By Church of God he was referring to the Church of God (Anderson). There are over 200 denominations called the Church of God or some variant thereof. To avoid confusion about whether we speak in tongues or handle snakes in worship, many of our congregations have dropped the name Church of God and gone with something more generic. But in an attempt to avoid confusion, what exactly does the name Connellsville Community Church tell one about who we are or what we believe? We just trade moderate ambiguity for profound ambiguity.

Of course, maybe in 21st century America the church name isn't what people are going to look at. Many persons check out a church's Internet presence before visiting in the flesh. We have people who love our church who checked out our web page and listened to some of my teachings before deciding they wanted to join us for worship.

Getting back to the church name thing; this is the post-denominational era of the American church--and some would even say the post-Christian age of America itself. The Church of God has always stood for unity--a unity based in our relationship with Christ. In some ways, the church in America has achieved this very thing. Here in Connellsville we have a wonderful ministerial assembly and a group of pastors who gather every Thursday at lunchtime for fellowship and prayer. We are a cohesive group, and I know these brothers in Christ (there are no women pastors who join us at present, though they would be welcome) pray for me throughout the week. We encourage one another and hold each other to a certain level of accountability (even though it's not technically an accountability group). But in spite of the cooperation between Christian groups (and I would agree that ecumenicity should only go so far), I fear this post-denominational age of the church does not result from the desire for Christian unity, as much as an apathy toward Christian doctrine.

Hence, What Makes the Church of God the Church of God? What about this class is so ambitious? Here's the 13-week outline:

06 03 -- Session 01 -- Introduction / What You Can Expect from this Class
06 10 -- Session 02 -- Survey of Church History (Beginning to 1500)
06 17 -- Session 03 -- Survey of Church History (1500 to Present)
06 24 -- Session 04 -- Survey of the Old Testament
07 01 -- Session 05 -- Survey of the New Testament
07 08 -- Session 06 -- Catalysts of a Reformation (How the Church of God was Born)
07 15 -- Session 07 -- Basic Beliefs in Common with Other Christians
07 22 -- Session 08 -- Distinguishing Doctrines of the Church of God (Part 01) -- Holiness
07 29 -- Session 09 -- Distinguishing Doctrines (Part 02) -- Unity
08 05 -- Session 10 -- Distinguishing Doctrines (Part 03) -- The Kingdom / Christ's Return
08 12 -- Session 11 -- Distinguishing Doctrines (Part 04) -- Church Membership
08 19 -- Session 12 -- Church Governance (Church and Church of God Structure)
08 26 -- Session 13 -- Wrap Up and Review

This is revised from the same class I taught last summer. I think it will be great fun, and I'm looking forward to every Sunday.

Why don't you join us?