Does God Call Me to Belong to a Local Church where the Word of God is not being Taught?

Jan 14, 2017 by Jill

by David Robertson, theweeflea:

“Does God call me to belong to a local church where the Word of God is not being taught?” That was one of the questions I have often been asked. I hope to have an occasional series looking at these kind of questions.

To some the answer to this particular question is so obvious that they think even the question is daft. But life is not as simple as all that. Imagine that you live in a small village or town where there is a local church. It’s not heretical in the sense that its official creed is orthodox and the minister or pastor does not really preach against it. You want to be a witness. You want to be able to invite your neighbours, your friends and your family who live in the area to the church. You want to participate in community life, help with the parent and toddlers, be part of the churches social witness. If you go to an out-of-town church then all that seems to be negated. Surely it is better to hang in and try to be salt and light within the church? As a friend once argued, the local church is a great boat to fish in.

I have enormous sympathy with that point of view and furthermore I don’t want to be a kind of sectarian or denominational Christian who is only going to go to a church where every t is crossed and every i dotted to my taste. I once preached in a church in the US, where I met a couple who told me that had travelled over 1500 miles to come to it because it was ‘the only church in the US where the gospel was faithfully preached’! They were wrong. I am not here talking about denominations, liturgical styles or secondary issues. Even though I am not a Baptist if there was a local Baptist church where the Word of God was faithfully preached then I would not particularly care if it was Baptist. However what about the situation where that is not the case?

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