We firmly believe at Gateway in expressing what is clearly taught by God's Word. That is paramount.
However, the challenge for many churches, especially new churches, is getting the balance right about issues that are not essential to the Gospel of Jesus. If a new church starts out to be 'free' in both essentials and non-essentials - therefore compromising on what is core and foundational to Christian belief and doctrine, then it is doomed. Just look at the demise of the liberal church in the UK. On the other-hand, if a new church starts out and is strict in both what is non-negotiable and negotiable then it's likely to end up at best irrelevant to its surrounding culture - worshipping tradition, and at worst 'extremist'.
The balance is to be strong with what the Bible plainly reveals about e.g. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also Creation, Human Nature, Sin, Salvation, the Church, and the Eternal Life to come. But also to be flexible on secondary issues. Here are two more examples, in addition to the previous post, about matters concerning the life of a new church that you can be free about, because there is no specific Biblical mandate.
Gateway Church, which is a 'Registered Charity' and a 'Company Limited', is currently independent. We do not belong to a denomination, with the Core Team members originating from a diverse church background, but with previous strong connections with the Methodist Church. As a new church, do we need to join a denomination or network? We could and various options have been carefully considered. But there is no biblical mandate for Gateway to join a denomination or an official organisation of churches. Instead, we sense God is guiding us to form natural partnerships with other like-minded local churches. One issue with denominations or networks, it doesn't guarantee that you have a natural affinity with any of those churches, although you may express the same convictions and views. Also, there's a strong likelihood that those churches may not be geographically near, so it's even more challenging to relate.
There is a place for denominations, which did not begin in New Testament days but in subsequent church history, and there is a place for organised networks of churches. But for Gateway, at least for the moment, we are content to develop informal partnerships with other local churches, which we are finding very fruitful. Having said all that, Gateway is very involved with 'Christians Together in Barnsley' and will become a member of the Evangelical Alliance once our church has been in existence for two years. But our independence remains, which gives a certain freedom to function as a local church.
Secondly, as an example of that freedom, we do not have a church membership. We have the original Core Team who launched Gateway, and there is a Leadership Team led by the Pastor, serving on behalf of the Core Team. But Gateway is now at the stage, where we need to give new people the opportunity to commit to Gateway Church and to express that commitment. So we are developing something similar to church membership, called 'Gateway Partner'. Gateway believes in active participation, not static membership. Membership, whether it's at a local church or a local history group or swimming club can imply something which is passive - there's no active involvement or at least it's just sporadic. The Bible talks about 'partnership in the gospel' (Philippians 1.5). Gateway understands this to mean believers united together in Jesus within a local church. In other words, partners who are engaging together, side by side, for the faith of the good news of Jesus (Philippians 1.27). We aim to set the bar high. The goal of a Gateway Partner is about active participation in *Sharing faith in Jesus, *Living out a Jesus-centred life, *Sunday meeting, *Growth Group, *Bible, *Prayer, *Giving, *Serving. We expects this to be a delight for a Christian filled with God's Spirit, but also recognising our sinfulness in constant need of God's forgiveness.
As a church, we continue to pray for God's guidance by His Holy Spirit (not magically, but by thinking, discussing and reading etc) that we will get the balance right between old and new, between biblical essentials that are binding upon us and we rejoice in, yet also biblical freedom in order to be relevant to our context and culture of Barnsley, UK.
"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion" (Philippians 1.6).
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