Church order

We call ourselves ministers.

My official job title given to us by the Church Order of the United Reformed Churches in North America is Minister of Word and Sacrament.

Putting me squarely in this place of someone along with the elders serving as a steward in God's house.

And then in Matthew 18, slightly different context, but he'll repeat the same language.

It is a judgment of the assembled church where two or three are gathered.

This is what we call the consistory.

And our church order says that our consistory has the spiritual authority in the local congregation to admit new members and to warn, to lovingly admonish, and if necessary, to exclude those who show they are not Christians.

Again, notice, uh, Paul's language in First Corinthians five.

Uh, not to take into account what they were actually doing in the life of the church is really not a very good approach to understanding and interpretation.

So for example, the very men who wrote Formula of Concord 10 that deals with adiaphora, and the particular circumstances that, that brought that conversation to the fore at that time, the same men also, uh, were instrumental in writing, uh, church orders, uh, Chemnitz and Andrea in particular, the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel Church Order, which was typical of the Lutheran territories.

They all had these, and they differed to some extent in their length and complexity, but they all had them, and there was an effort that there would be some compatibility and similarity between them.

But the church orders, uh, give doctrinal statements in terms of our confession of theology, but then also, uh, detailed instructions for how the church and the pastors are going to conduct their life together.

And this is specifically in areas of adiaphora because that's where the church actually has the freedom to give such instructions and guidance.

And so for, for the whole territory, uh, in these areas, here's how we're gonna do it.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and we don't want that kind of anarchy, every man for himself.