The Gospel affects the entire life of a believer, and the same is true for a body of believers that comprise a local church. Churches, and all that they do, should have a particular Gospel focus. From the preaching to the polity, everything should be intentionally centered on the Gospel. The purpose of this short article is to provide a brief theology of a Gospel-centered church. This will be done by looking at how the Gospel affects preaching and teaching, membership and discipline, and worship and liturgy. I hope that you will be convinced of the necessity of a Gospel-centered church and will then seek to implement these principles in the life of your church.
Preaching and Teaching
Preaching is, perhaps, the most vital element of a Gospel-centered church. Mark Dever says in his book The Church, “God’s people in Scripture are created by God’s revelation of himself. His Spirit accompanies his Word and brings life.”1 If this is true, then the most important thing for churches to do is to proclaim the Word of life. Each church’s growth and godliness depend upon it, hence Paul’s charge to Timothy, “I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:1-2).
It should go without saying that preaching the Word entails clearly preaching the Gospel. Every sermon or teaching expounded from the Scriptures should find its terminus in the Gospel of Jesus Christ because it is by the Gospel that nonbelievers are saved and believers are sanctified. But I don’t simply mean that every sermon must conclude with a Gospel presentation; rather, the entire sermon is crafted through the lens of the finished work of Christ on our behalf. How one presents the Gospel or shapes a Gospel-centered sermon can vary depending upon the specific passage and context of the preacher.
Thus, the most foundational aspect of a Gospel-centered church is that it is Gospel-centered in its preaching and teaching.
Membership and Discipline
The Gospel creates a people set apart for God. Within the body of Christ, there should be a clear line between those who are “in” and those who are “out.” The “in” aspect represents church membership, and the “out” aspect represents the lost world or those who are undergoing church discipline as a result of living like a non-believer. We see this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul charges the church to ex-fellowship a man who was unrepentant concerning gross sin. Paul writes, “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you’” (1 Cor. 5:12-13). The important question this text raises is, “How can churches judge those on the inside if they don’t know who is on the inside?” Therefore, for the church to be able to practice church discipline as it is biblically mandated to do, it is fundamental for church membership to be taken seriously. Church membership protects and marks off those who have been saved by the glorious Gospel of God, and church discipline warns and rebukes those who profess faith but who are not living in accord with the Gospel. The church cannot have one without the other, and a church that doesn’t take church membership and church discipline seriously is a church that doesn’t take the Gospel seriously. They may profess to, but if they don’t honor the clear distinctions that the Gospel makes by separating the church from the world, then their profession falls flat. It would be like someone saying they take their health seriously while simultaneously eating nothing but junk food and never exercising. Thus, a Gospel-centered church takes church membership and church discipline seriously.
Worship and Liturgy
Gospel-centered churches should structure their weekly services to display the Gospel. When the body comes together, the order of service should not be haphazard. There is a way to structure the service that continually points the members of the body to the Gospel. This is primarily demonstrated by having a Gospel-centered liturgy. For example, a typical liturgy should feature the following: a call to worship, which represents the fact that God has called us and that He is worthy of our worship and adoration; a confession of sin, which reminds us of our continual need to repent and to turn from our sin and shame to embrace the sanctifying work of the Gospel; an assurance of pardon, which reminds us of the true forgiveness we have found in the blood of Christ; and hearing the preached Word so that we can grow in Christlikeness and obedience.
In addition to the service structure, the content of the service should be driven by the Bible. Ligon Duncan has helpfully pointed out that churches that follow the teaching of the New Testament “Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.”2 If we have a gospel-centered church, then our service structure and content will readily reflect the Bible.
Why Do We Need a Gospel-Centered Church?
If everything that has been stated so far is true, then the answer to the question “Why do we need a Gospel-centered church?” is not complicated. First, the Gospel is “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Churches can be built upon gimmicks, personalities, entertainment, relationships, and much more, but these things, in and of themselves, have no power. The power that creates a true church is the Gospel.
Second, the Gospel not only creates the church, but it also sustains the church. Oftentimes, churches can look to everything but the Gospel to sustain its people. They try a smorgasbord of options, from the latest church growth techniques to secular relationship advice. This stems from thinking that the Gospel is elementary and that it is something from which you graduate. In reality, the church needs a constant flow of the Gospel as a sick patient needs to be sustained with a constant flow of medicine. Thus, when a church begins to think that it can be sustained by anything but the Gospel, that is the moment the church begins to die.
Third and finally, a church that is not centered upon the Gospel is of no real use, humanly speaking. Sure, it may be temporally encouraging for people to gather once a week and associate with people of whom they are fond, but if the Gospel is absent, then there is not much separating them from the group of atheists gathering down the road for the same purposes. God, through the Gospel, produces eternal change. If we want our churches to have eternal ramifications for both ourselves and our communities, then we must be centered upon the means by which God brings about this change, namely, the good news of His Son, Jesus Christ.
1 Mark Dever, The Church: The Gospel Made Visible (Nashville: B&H, 2012), 22.
2 Ligon Duncan, Foundations for Biblically Directed Worship. 65-68.