There is a lot of attention right now being given to the following post from Don Miller – the one reenforcing people to not go to church “often” if they simply aren’t feeling it. I have listened to him a great deal. I too have read most all of his writing and I resonate with what he is sharing but I had a few different red flags go up as I read his post. Those red flags is the reason that I wanted to share the response that the Gospel Coalition gave to his follow-up blog post (you can find part one here)
Here’s a snippet of the response and I encourage you to read it entirely.
In other words, Don, the main thing I want to highlight in response to both of your posts is the difference between what you call “community” and what the Bible calls the “church.” Jesus actually gave authority to those local assemblies called churches (Matt. 16:13-20; 18:15-20). The assembly is not just a fellowship, but an accountability fellowship. It’s not just a group of believers at the park; it preaches the gospel and possesses the keys of the kingdom for binding and loosing through the ordinances. It declares who does and does not belong to the kingdom. It exercises oversight. And exercising such affirmation and oversight meaningfully means gathering regularly and getting involved in one another’s lives.[…]
Click here to view original web page at thegospelcoalition.org
