The Nature of the Church and Its Head

Editors’ note:

This video series is based on Conrad Mbewe’s book, God’s Design For The Church. In partnership with RightNow Media Africa, we’re exploring what the Bible teaches about the Church’s mission. To supplement these videos we’ll provide related articles and book reviews that dig deeper into God’s calling for the local churches and the individual believers within them. So why don’t you watch and read along as we journey together towards a clearer and more compelling vision for the Church?

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In this first video of a series on God’s design for his Church, Pastor Conrad Mbewe of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, speaks passionately about the urgent need for a biblical understanding of the Church in Africa. “The number of churches,” Mbewe notes, “are multiplying right across the continent at an unprecedented rate.” On top of this, he continues, “individuals are coming into church leadership without any formal training.”

Perhaps a little surprisingly, Mbewe argues that what the African Church urgently needs is first and foremost a better theology of the Church. A clearer ecclesiology. Yes, we need training and accountability. We need pronounced paths to ordination, with various checks along the way. Some even argue that we need greater involvement from the government, to hold abusive and embezzling pastors to account. Along with that, Mbewe insists, the African Church will be greatly served by developing its theology of the Church.

In this video Mbewe begins to develop this doctrine, a few ways. He shows that the Greek word usually translated as ‘church’ means ‘assembly’ or ‘called out,’ thus the Church is a people God has saved and brought together. Thus it follows that churches aren’t a disjointed collection of individuals, but a community. We see this in the early church, who were devoted “to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers” (Acts 2:42). Within those communities God has gifted everyone differently, to serve one another.

We must never confuse the Church with the church’s meetings.

Mbewe concludes by cautioning against confusing the Church with its gatherings; or judging its health by the quality of its buildings. He explains that a church’s true health depends on members obeying Jesus Christ, the Church’s head. In his words, “We must not mistake a Church’s health with the buildings that the church meets in. Because,” he goes on, “ultimately it is whether the people that call themselves the church, who meet together in that context, are living in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the Church.”

Other Content On The Church’s Nature

Three Traits of a Church That Glorifies God
Ephesians 3: The Church Doesn’t Exist for You
The African Church Needs More Pastoral Apologists
God’s Design For The Church

Transcript

Introduction: The Urgency of Understanding the Church in Africa

My name is Conrad Mbewe, Pastor for Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia. And I want to speak on the subject of the Church. An all-important topic especially here in Africa where the number of churches are multiplying right across the continent at an unprecedented rate. Part of the reason is simply; the spirit of God is moving on this continent. There’s no doubt that many people are being converted to Jesus Christ from right across sub-Saharan Africa. It is amazing when you think in terms of the numbers of people being baptized upon profession of faith day after day.

And what’s happening as a result of that is that individuals are coming into church leadership without any formal training. You can’t help it because so many people are coming to Christ. And therefore there is need for such people to know what the Church is, what its purpose is, who should be members of the Church, who should be leading the Church and all the rest of the kind of questions that any leader will be asking himself as they are thinking through leading the church. And so, what I’m doing is answering some of those questions so that anyone who is finding himself in a leadership position will be able to know how he ought to lead the church.

What Is the Church? A Biblical Definition

Well, the very first question that needs to be asked is: What is the church? And who is the church’s head? The Bible doesn’t leave us guessing. It gives us the right answers so that we are clear what this institution is that we are leading. And one of the ways in which the Bible gives us answers is simply by the different phrases that the Bible uses for the Church. For instance, one of those phrases is in Greek – the word “ekklēsia” which simply means assembly or called out ones.

Now you may be thinking what that means is people coming to church on Sunday, wrong. It is referring to people who have been called out through salvation, through the regenerating work of the spirit of the living God. They are brought to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are transformed from the inside out. They are as a result brought together into a family, a colony of faith.

The Early Church Example (Acts 2:40–42)

That is what the Church is, and you can’t miss it from Acts and chapter 2 beginning with verse 40. The Bible says there, “And with many other words he (referring to Peter) bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” We notice there first of all, the people that came into the church. They are individuals who responded to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that Peter was preaching and in responding through repentance and faith they were baptized and, in that sense, initiated into this body of Christ – the church. But then we also need to see there that they were involved in a number of activities.

Number one, they were committed to the apostles teaching. They were listening to what was being taught. Number two, they were committed to the fellowship. In other words, the body itself, the individuals that made up the church. Number three, they were committed to the breaking of bread. In other words, that meal that continually reminded them of the crucified saviour, the way of their salvation. And then number four, to the prayers. They recognized that they were a people that were called to lift up their voices to the living God. Well, there you have one picture of the church. There is another picture, and it is that of the body of Christ. All that it is saying is that Christ is the head. I’ll speak about that in a moment. And then we are the arms, the legs, the eyes, the ears, the mouthpieces and so on. We are individuals who are fulfilling our different responsibilities in this context of the church.

That brings out at least two aspects. The first is that all of us who are members of the church are gifted in one way or the other. So that we don’t just come to church in order to be ministered to. We come to the church saying what are my gifts so that I can contribute to the furtherance of the work that has been given to the Church. The consumer mentality that is so evident in the church is something that needs for us to get rid of. But number two in that context of the body is the realization that we must care for one another just as the human body cares for itself. The hands, the mouth, the eyes, and so on all play their role to make sure that the body is well fed, the body is where it ought to be, the body is rested or working and so forth. That is a favourite picture that the apostle Paul uses concerning the nature of the Church. But one more picture and it is that of the bride of Christ and that is simply referring to the price that has been paid for the church to be what it is, saved from the world in order to find itself in heaven.

The Head of the Church: Jesus Christ

But we also mentioned earlier that we don’t just want to know the nature of the church. We also want to know its head. And thankfully we can see that from Ephesians and chapter 5. We read there in verse 22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” The Bible is very clear there that Jesus Christ is the head and we are the body. We draw our instructions from him. He is the one who has taken that place by appointment. God made him the head of the church. Now there are a number of implications out of that.

First of all, it simply means that those of us who are leaders of the church must never consider ourselves as founders of the church must never consider God’s people or the church as ours. It does not belong to us. It belongs to Jesus Christ. He’s the one who died for the Church. He is its saviour. To borrow another picture, we must consider ourselves as shepherds under the great shepherd of the sheep. And so, we are to follow his instructions as we are leading the Church.

Common Misunderstandings about the Church

The tendency for church leaders to think that people in the Church owe them a living. They are the ones who are the centre of everything. That is certainly something that needs to be corrected.

But also, when we think in terms of the nature of the church, let’s also remember that we must never confuse the church with the church’s meetings. In other words, the Church comprises the people that have repented from sin and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and have now covenanted together under Christ. Whereas church meetings comprise a lot of other people who are not members in that sense of the Church. Some of them live sinful and wicked lives. They’ve never known the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me also add, we must not mistake a Church’s health with the buildings that the church meets in.

There might be lovely church buildings, lovely cathedrals, but that does not mean that that is a better church than individuals meeting in a village under a tree. Because ultimately it is whether the people that call themselves the church, who meet together in that context, are living in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. So, we must not make those mistakes. The church comprises the people of God who’ve repented from sin and are following the head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conrad Mbewe is the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia and is a Council member of The Gospel Coalition Africa. Conrad is the Founding Chancellor the African Christian University in Lusaka and currently serves as the Dean of the School of Divinity at ACU. He and his wife, Felistas, have six adult children.