WHAT IS CONGREGATIONALISM?
Acts 4:32-37

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
January 8, 2006 / 1st Sunday after the Epiphany

As Beneficent Church has grown over the last several years, we have had the great joy of welcoming new people. They have brought fresh faces, energy, and creative ideas to our midst.

However, some, in recent months have said to me that they really don't know what is going on. What is a Congregational Church? How is this Church organized? How does in run? We try to cover some of that in our membership inquiry meetings, like the one we will have today. But its hard to grasp everything in one meeting.

So I thought today I'd try to answer the question, "what is Congregationalism?" Now I have to admit, I'm a terrible person to have answer that question. My newest book was published just last month, and it includes hundreds of pages defining Congregationalism and comparing the Congregational church order to the Presbyterian church order. I mean, ask me to speak on this topic, and we could be here all day!

So I'll try to whittle it down. And, as you might expect, I'll try to explain it from an historical perspective.

Congregationalism is an understanding of the way the Church operates, an ecclesiology; and people living according to that understanding. We often call it the Congregational Way of life, "the Congregational Way."

This thinking, this style of living, grew up in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This understanding, this way of doing things, was built on the Protestant Reformation, and is uniquely Christian, and thoroughly Reformed. The Protestant Reformation taught salvation through Jesus Christ. It moved worship into the language of the people, so people could understand and participate. It looked to the Bible and the revelation of Jesus to find out how to live. In this it is like other Protestant Churches.

But in England there was a special problem. You may remember that the Church of England, the Anglican Church, was founded by King Henry VIII so that he could get a divorce. Actually a lot of them. Henry had six wives. Henry also made himself the head of the Church of England. By making himself head of the Church he was able to seize the land and buildings of the monasteries and convents and give them to his friends. He may have been the head of the Church, but he was not noted for pious living.

He also appointed friends as bishops, and allowed them to give the tax paid pastoral positions in many many churches to near do well children of their friends. Some second sons of the gentry became the pastor of many churches, and never showed up in any of them. Many of these appointed pastors were uneducated. It was not unusual for some of these pastors to show up drunk in the pulpit on Sunday morning.

Now, since Henry claimed that his Church was Protestant, he had it adopt beliefs that were like other Protestant Churches.

But there were people in the Church of England who wanted to be real Christians. Sure the denomination said it believed certain things. But the King lacked family values. The minister was often drunk or absent, or uneducated. The towns were decadent. Crime was rampant.

Now the printing press had come along. People in England had begun to read. Particularly at Cambridge University professors began to teach about the Bible. People in pews read their Bibles. They read Calvin's Institutes. When their poorly educated pastor said other things in the sermons, they questioned it. Where did the pastor come up with these ideas?

And as they continued to look around at their country, they found: vice and crime were rampant. Most people were not educated. Poverty abounded. People were hungry. Families were often ugly rather than holy. When they read their Bibles they imagined a better world.

So the members began to congregate and talk to each other. They wanted pastors who were educated and read their Bibles. They wanted children who knew how to read. They wanted to end crime and ignorance. Laity and pious clergy came together to create new communities.

Most of all they desired to follow God. They desired to have a holy Church that called the world to holiness and righteousness. Their Bibles taught them to be people who were consumed with the love of God, heart, mind, soul, and strength, who were consumed with a love to love their neighbor as themselves. They used the title "visible saints." They wanted Church members who were trying to use all of their energy to live according to the ways of God. They met with each other and talked about their Bibles, and ethical issues, and how to raise their children. And they modified the way they lived according to what they found in their faith.

So they congregated. They talked. They read their Bibles. But they were also on fire for Godliness.

While most were married and had children, they felt devoted to each other, to help each other walking along the Pilgrim Way.

As our text says "the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul."

While few of them said it openly, we now know they were strongly influenced by the great monastic writers of the centuries before them. While monks and nuns were celibate, and most of these new Congregationalists were married and in families, they believed in forming communities together. Each family in the congregated assembly would work hard. But the whole covenanted community would make sure that there was no one in the community starving, freezing, or homeless. They tried to reflect the apostolic injunction, "there was not a needy person among them." So when they came to New England they set out as paupers in a wilderness, caring for each other, insisting that each community must provide education, and must take care of its poor.

So joining a Congregational Church was very different from joining other Churches. You could join the Church of England by saying I believe in their creed, receiving their sacraments, and then going off living as you saw fit. To join a Congregational Church you committed yourself to the community. It is the opposite of individualism. You would come and meet with the people and talk with the people. You would help your neighbor explore what the Bible is saying, and you might come to new light on what God is saying for our time. To join a Congregational church you would give sacrificially. You were willing to tax yourself to see that the ministry of the Church was provided for and that there was no needy person among the community. You lived for each other. It was like belonging to a monastery. You knew their names.

Every day and every way you tried to make the holiness of God visible in your acts and deeds. You were consumed by the love of God in heart, mind, soul, and strength, and the love of your neighbor as yourself.

Now our forbearers believed that everyone should hear the Good News of God. So they encouraged everyone, whether you were a covenanted member of the community or not, to worship God, and listen to the Bible. Everyone is welcome at worship. Everyone is invited to listen to the Word.

But if you want to join the Church, if you want to be part of the covenanted community, then you must have this burning desire to live for God. To join a community means to put everything about you, your time, your wealth, your talent, at risk for the needs of the other people in the community.

Now let me be honest. Congregationalism has not always lived up to this dream of community. In wanting to be welcoming and inclusive we have welcomed into membership people from other traditions who think that Church membership merely means you have consented to some creed or belief statement. Some of those people have learned community, some have not.

And some people, even among those raised in the community, have joined the community, but not lived for the community. Some have joined the community and failed to live on fire for the love of God and others. Some have even committed the sin of coming to a Church meeting and voting for their own ease, or their own pride, and put aside the love of God and others.

And, because Jesus said "judge not that ye be not judged," we have often been slow to discipline, and we have allowed people and church members to stray far away from the ideal of living for God and for each other.

But the Biblical goal is still there. "Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions . . . and there was not a needy person among them." That is the goal. That is what Church membership is about. That is the life Congregationalism seeks to live out. We invite you to this community.

Amen.