教会的复兴

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教会的复兴

                                                                                             

福音派教会遍布于美国和世界的许多地方，然而一些福音派教会却像是街角的垃圾一般让人避之不及。表面上他们宣称自己相信福音，他们的历史传统和信仰告白也认信福音，这些教会中也有真信徒，但总体而言他们的生命却没能彰显出福音的信息。他们无法给人们提供有营养的粮食，反而是排放出有毒的苦水。

在这个国家里，有一些的教会可能真的无药可救了。但是悲哀的是，许多的福音派人士和传道人已经习惯于忽略这样的他们教会，而只是简单去建立新的教会。植堂的工作固然重要，也具有重大的战略意义，我也很高兴看到越来越多的人来做植堂的工作。但是，如果你的花园里已经是杂草丛生，你会只是在花园正中再添上一些漂亮的鸢尾花吗？如果你听不清电视上的新闻，因为收音机声音的干扰，你会仅仅把电视的音量调高吗？

我认为，复兴教会——也就是解决使教会衰落的问题，并使教会朝着信心来建造，使垂死的教会重新焕发生机——是圣经所要求我们承担的责任。

复兴教会是使徒工作的优先

我们来思想《哥林多前书》。大约公元50年左右，保罗在哥林多建立了神的教会。几年之后他写了这封信，回应他听到的一些传闻以及解答哥林多教会提出的若干疑问。保罗的信里面涉及的许多的问题：

• 结党纷争：有人说“我是属保罗的”，有人说“我是属亚波罗的”。(1:10-17)
• 容忍性的不道德 (5:1-13)；
• 信徒之间的诉讼 (6:1-8);
• 关于婚姻和性问题上的困惑 (7:1-40);
• 关于基督徒自由的界限上的分歧(8:1-13; 10:1-33);
• 崇拜上的分歧 (11-14章)
• 有关复活的错误教导(15章)
  
  
  

转换一下看问题的角度和文化处境，公元55年左右的哥林多教会正是当下众多教会分裂情形的写照。他们被类似的问题纠缠困扰：错误的教导、不道德、分裂、明争暗斗以及各样的世俗化。他们需要做彻底的教牧手术来救回性命、恢复健康。

那么，保罗是怎样处理哥林多的问题呢？他并没有说“这些人无可救药。他们不过是一帮假信徒，一群骄傲自大、冥顽不灵的宗教人士罢了！你的教会绝对不想要这样的人。”然后他再派提摩太去哥林多重新建立一个教会。

不是这样的。保罗向哥林多人恳求。他多次去看望他们，他责备他们、教导他们、忍受他们。简言之，他致力于复兴哥林多教会。

当然，保罗的处境和今天有一些的断层（其中之一就是当时的哥林多就只有唯一的教会），但是结论依然成立：保罗并没有放弃哥林多教会、任其在罪中沉沦，而是劳苦的修理和重建。而这样的修理和重建正是今天众多福音派教会所需要的。

这也与保罗所担负的使徒事工上的优先次序一致。保罗不像许多当代的布道家，他的工作并只是在尽可能短的时间内建立尽可能多的新教会。相反，在第一次宣教旅程之后，“过了些日子，保罗对巴拿巴说，我们可以回到从前宣传主道的各城，看望弟兄们景况如何。”（徒15：36）并且保罗还“走遍叙利亚，基利家，坚固众教会。”（徒15：41）

即使地中海区域还有广袤的土地等待福音化，保罗自己也有此雄心，但是保罗对他所建立的教会的健康是如此关心（罗15：20）以至于他又回到他曾经建立教会的地方，为的是坚固当地的教会。如果我们要像圣经告诉我们的那样（林前4:17，11:1，腓力比书3:17）去追随保罗的脚步，我建议我们应该有负担来促进所有跟随基督、信仰福音的教会持续地变健康和壮大。

教会不能像堆肥一样，一旦开始腐烂，散发出来的臭气能持续多年、几十年甚至几个世纪之久，从而盖住了基督的香气。教会的分裂乃是向世人宣称基督被分裂了(林前 1:13)，教会容忍不道德就是宣告基督不是圣洁的，宣告那些承受神国的是一群淫乱的、拜偶像的、酒鬼和骗子(林前 6:9-11)。

所以，我们也应当像保罗一样有负担来重建、复兴和归正那些有不同问题的教会。这样的教会并不少见，在美国尤其如此。

耶稣：教会归正者

在启示录第2-3章，耶稣自己就是在归正那些地方的教会。祂对这些教会说话，恢复破碎的，医治患病的，斥责虚假的，以及复兴垂死的。举个例子：耶稣指责以弗所教会虽然持守教义，却缺乏爱心（启2：2-7）。祂称赞别迦摩教会持守祂的名，然而祂也指责他们持守假教导，所以祂呼吁他们悔改（启2:13-17）。雅推喇的教会中有人跟从假教导，耶稣要审判他们（启2：20-23），但对于剩下人，祂则称赞和鼓励他们继续得持守（启2:19,24-28）. 而对于撒狄教会，耶稣说道，“我知道你的行为、按名你是活的、其实是死的。你要儆醒、坚固那剩下将要衰微的。（衰微原文作死）因我见你的行为、在我 神面前、没有一样是完全的。所以要回想你是怎样领受、怎样听见的。又要遵守、并要悔改。若不儆醒、我必临到你那里如同贼一样。我几时临到、你也决不能知道。然而在撒狄你还有几名是未曾污秽自己衣服的。他们要穿白衣与我同行。因为他们是配得过的。”（启3：1-4）

如果你还需要一节经文来支持教会复兴，启示录3:2节“（你要）把那些剩下来将要死的坚强起来”就是你需要的。

不错，这节经文是针对一个特定的教会而言的，但是其他的教会和有志向的牧者难道不应当效法耶稣对撒狄教会所怀的怜悯吗？那些落在假教师手中的教会当中也有忠心的少数，对他们我们岂不也应该有一样的关心吗？

单单这两节经文就提到了耶稣去归正和复兴的七个教会。我们也应当如此。

神的子民披戴着神的名

圣经给了我们另外一个去归正和复兴教会的动机：神的子民披戴着神的名。基督徒是受洗归于父、子、圣灵的名（太28:19）。在末后的日子，基督徒是神的殿，是神因着祂的名所建造和居住之地的体现（王上8:17、19）。教会就是一群按着神的名被召、为着神自己的荣耀创造、祂所塑造所作成的（赛43:7）。并且，神不能容忍祂的名荣耀被沾染（赛48:9-11）— 我们也当如此。

但是，就像我刚刚所说的，当教会在罪、分裂和表里不一中痛苦时，神的名就沦为社会的笑柄。这样的教会羞辱了神的名，而不是尊崇祂、荣耀祂。

一个垂死的、被罪纠缠的教会就像灯泡和反射镜都破碎了的灯塔。他们无法将神荣耀的光照耀在数里之外，无法凭借神的恩典将罪人呼召进天国，而是留下和以前一样的黑暗，甚至可能更加的黑暗。他们又像是被劫持的电台，广播出去的不是他们所宣称的信仰，而是有关上帝的谎言而非真理。

神将祂的名赐给祂的子民，和那些在特定情形下奉祂名聚集的人（太18：20），对祂名的关心促使我们去归正和复兴教会。如同狄马可常说的，教会复兴是一石二鸟的工作。你拆毁一个坏的见证，在原地建立起一个好的见证。

所以…？

如果这个道理成立，我们又该做些什么呢？简单得来说，当我们考虑如何传福音、见证神的国时，复兴教会应该成为一个有份量的选项。这应当是我们的众教会应当去考虑、计划和祷告的事情。那些期望传福音的教会应该像主耶稣和保罗一样，去使软弱的教会强壮起来、恢复他们的见证。

你要去思考你的教会可以怎样帮助那些处在挣扎中的教会。去了解他们、发现他们的需要、和他们建立关系，尽一切可能的方法来帮助他们。时机合适的时候甚至还可以差派牧师和其他人手来帮助他们的革新工作。

如果你是一个有抱负的植堂者，请将教会复兴作为植堂之外的另一个选择。如果你复兴一间教会，你就是通过清理教会弟兄姊妹丢弃给这个城市的各种垃圾来荣耀上帝和服事祂的子民（这是教会改革通常会带来的），而不仅只是去新建一间教会而已。与做社区卫生工作相比，你的邻居可能更愿意看到一间灵命复兴的教会。而且谁也不知道你复兴起来的这间教会当中，又会有多少人去建立多少间新的教会！

教会复兴应当成为我们的负担，因为这正是圣经所要求我们的。主耶稣和使徒保罗的个人侍奉都显露出这一点。神的子民拥有着神的名，所以我们也要坚固那剩下将要衰微的。

The Bible’s Burden for Church Revitalization

Throughout much of the United States (and a few other parts of the world) evangelical churches quite literally litter the landscape.

Many of these churches are like trash left on a street corner—they cause people to cross to the other side to avoid them. The people who belong to them profess to believe in the gospel, and their historic statements of faith confess the gospel. And some true Christians do belong to such churches. But on the whole the life of the church broadcasts anything but a gospel message. These churches instead churn out toxic waste rather than the nourishing food that people need.

Some churches in this state may be unrecoverable. But the sad thing is, many evangelicals seem content to ignore such churches and simply start new ones.

Church planting is important and strategic, and I am glad to see more and more people taking up that work.

But if you saw a garden overrun with weeds, would you simply plant some nice new irises right in the middle? If you couldn’t hear the news on TV because your radio was blaring, would you simply turn up the TV?

I would suggest that church revitalization—bringing life to dying churches by dealing with the causes of decline and building toward faithfulness—is a biblical burden. That is, when we see these churches acting as anti-witnesses to Christ, we should, according to Scripture, have a burden to do something about it. The burden of this article is to prove that point.

CHURCH REVITALIZATION: AN APOSTOLIC PRIORITY

Consider the letter of 1 Corinthians. Paul planted the church in Corinth sometime around 50 AD, and he wrote this letter just a few years later in response to reports he had heard about the church, as well as some questions the church had posed to him. What were the issues that prompted Paul to write? Consider the following:

• Divisions and factions: some saying “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos” (1:10-17);
• Tolerating sexual immorality (5:1-13);
• Lawsuits among church members (6:1-8);
• Confusion over marriage and sexuality (7:1-40);
• Division in the church over the limits of Christian freedom (8:1-13; 10:1-33);
• Worship wars (chs. 11-14);
• And false teaching about the resurrection (ch. 15).
  
  
  

If you squint your eyes slightly and adjust the cultural particulars, the church in Corinth circa 55 AD is the spitting image of many evangelical churches today. Many churches today are beset by a similarly potent mixture of false teaching, immorality, division, infighting, and all-around worldliness. Many churches today are in similar need of radical pastoral surgery in order to save their lives and restore their health.

So when faced with these issues in Corinth, what did Paul do? He didn’t say, “Those people are hopeless. They’re a mixture of false believers and proud, stubborn religious people. You don’t want those people in your church anyway”—and then commission Timothy to go and plant a new church in Corinth.

Instead, he pleaded with them. He came to see them again and again. He rebuked them and instructed them and bore with them. In short, he worked to reform the church of God which was at Corinth.

Yes, there are discontinuities between Paul’s situation and ours. For one, this church was the only church in Corinth at the time. But the point still stands: instead of abandoning the church at Corinth to simply rot away in its sin, Paul labored to repair and restore it. A similar kind of repair and restoration is exactly what countless evangelical churches need today.

And this is consistent with Paul’s broader priorities as an apostle. Unlike some contemporary missionaries, Paul didn’t simply try to start as many new church plants in as short a time as possible. Instead, here’s what Paul did after his first missionary tour: “And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are’” (Acts 15:36). And so Paul “went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches” (Acts 15:41).

Paul was so concerned for the health of the churches he had planted that, with huge regions of the Mediterranean still to be evangelized, and an ambition to personally do so (Rom. 15:20), he went back through a region in which he had already labored, in order to strengthen the churches. I would suggest that if we are to follow in Paul’s footsteps, as Scripture calls us to (1 Cor. 4:17, 11:1; Phil. 3:17), then we should have a burden for the ongoing health and strength of congregations which bear the name “Christian” and profess to adhere to the gospel.

Churches aren’t compostable. And when they begin to decay, they can give off a stench for years or decades or even centuries that utterly overwhelms the aroma of Christ. When a church is divided, it proclaims that Christ is divided (1 Cor. 1:13). When a church tolerates immorality, it says to the world that Christ isn’t holy—and that the sexually immoral and idolaters and drunkards and swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (see 1 Cor. 6:9-11).

So we, like Paul, should have a burden to restore, revitalize, and reform churches that are in various stages of sickness. And we’ve got no shortage of those churches on our hands, especially in America.

JESUS THE CHURCH REFORMER

In the letters to the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus himself works to reform those local congregations. He speaks to those churches in order to set right what is broken, to heal what is sick, to rebuke what is false, and to give new life to what is dying.

Here’s a sampling: Jesus rebukes the Ephesians who are doctrinally sound but lack love (Rev. 2:2-7). He commends the church in Pergamum for holding fast his name, yet he rebukes them for entertaining false teaching, and he calls them to repent (Rev. 2:13-17). The church in Thyatira had some who held to false teaching, and Jesus promises to judge them (Rev. 2:20-23), but the rest of the church he commends and encourages to persevere (Rev. 2:19, 24-28). And to the church in Sardis, Jesus says,

You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard…Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. (Rev. 3:2-4)

If you need a one-verse proof text for church revitalization, Revelation 3:2 is it: “Strengthen what remains and is about to die.”

True, this verse was written to the church itself, but shouldn’t sister churches and aspiring pastors exemplify the compassion of Christ toward churches like the one in Sardis? Shouldn’t we have a similar concern for the faithful few in such churches, who suffer at the hands of false teachers?

Jesus reformed and revitalized churches—seven of them in these two chapters alone. So should we.

GOD’S PEOPLE BEAR GOD’S NAME

One more motivation Scripture gives us for reforming and revitalizing churches is that God’s people bear God’s name. Christians are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Christians are the end-time temple, the embodiment of the place where God caused his name to dwell (1 Kgs. 8:17, 19). The church is the people who are called by God’s name, whom he created for his glory, whom he formed and made (Isa. 43:7).

Further, God is jealous for the glory of his name (Isa. 48:9-11)—and we should be, too.

But, as I’ve said, when churches languish in sin and division and nominalism, God’s name becomes a byword in the community. Such churches slander the name of God, rather than adorning and magnifying it.

A decaying, sin-riddled church is like a lighthouse with a broken bulb—and mirror. Instead of reflecting the light of God’s glory for miles around, to call sinners into the safe haven of God’s mercy, such a church leaves the night as dark as it was before—or even darker. It’s like a radio transmitting station that’s been hijacked: regardless of what they claim to believe, such a church broadcasts lies about God rather than the truth.

So a concern for the name of God, which he has placed upon his people—and upon their corporate gatherings in a special sense (Mt. 18:20)—should move us to reform and revitalize churches. As Mark Dever has so often said, church revitalization is a kingdom two-for-one. You tear down a bad witness and set up a good one in its place.

SO WHAT?

If this biblical case holds water, what should we do about it? I would simply say that as we think about how to spread the gospel and witness to the kingdom, church revitalization should be a major option on the table. It should be something our churches think about and strategize over and pray for. Churches that want to spread and promote the gospel should be concerned, as Jesus and Paul were, to strengthen and restore the witness of struggling churches.

Consider seeing what your local church can do to assist other local churches that may be struggling. Get to know them. Discover their needs. Build relationships with them. Be open to helping them in whatever ways you can, including, if the opportunity arises, sending a pastor and people to help with the work of reform.

If you’re an aspiring church planter, consider church revitalization as another option in addition to planting. If you revitalize a church, you may be able to glorify God and serve his people not only by establishing a new church (which is essentially what church reform often amounts to), but by cleaning up the trash your brothers and sisters have left around the city. As with cleaning up your neighborhood physically, you might be surprised by how much your neighbors appreciate a spiritually renovated church. And who knows how many churches may be planted or revitalized out of your renewed congregation!

Church revitalization should be our burden because it is God’s burden, as seen in the personal ministries of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul. God’s people bear God’s name, so we too should strive to strengthen what remains and is about to die.

作者：Bobby Jamieson

Bobby Jamieson 是九标志英文事工的助理编辑，第三大道浸信会成员，毕业于美南浸信会神学院。

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