076. What do you think of the institutional church? Is it not detrimental to the real work o...

What do you think of the institutional church? Is it not detrimental to the real work of the church as set forth in the New Testament? By an institutional church I understand a church that not only does the direct work of preaching the Gospel and building Christians up by teaching the Bible, but a church that also looks after the physical and mental welfare of its members and congregation by various institutions. Such work is not necessarily detrimental to the real work of the church as set forth in the New Testament. It may be a valuable auxiliary, provided that the physical and intellectual are kept in thorough subordination to the spiritual. The apostolic church was in a measure an institutional church. It looked out for the physical welfare of its members, all property was held in common (Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:34-35; Acts 6:1-4), and the Word of God increased and prospered under these circumstances (Acts 2:47; Acts 4:4; Acts 5:14; Acts 6:7). Of course, the institutions were not many, nor very largely developed. In a similar way today the church can have various institutions for looking after the physical and intellectual welfare of its members. If it is located among the poor, it can have savings institutions, a society for buying coal at the cheapest rate, libraries, educational classes, and so forth, and accomplish a vast amount of good, and make all this subservient to the preaching of the Gospel. All these things can be used as means of getting hold of men, women and children and bringing them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But there is always a danger in an institutional church. The danger is that the institutions get to be the main things and the Gospel may be put in a secondary place, or altogether lost sight of. This has been the history of more than one institutional church in this country, and it is always a danger. In such a case the institutional church becomes detrimental to the real work of the church as set forth in the New Testament. The first work of the church is seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10; Matthew 5:19), its second work is feeding the flock (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2), and its third work is training the membership for intelligent service (Ephesians 4:11-12, R.V.). If the institutions connected with the church are allowed to put any one of these three things in the background, they do more harm than good, but if the institutions are carried on in the spirit of prayer and with the intention, never lost sight of for a moment, of winning men for Christ, and everything is made subordinate to the preaching of the Gospel and the salvation of the lost and the edification of the saints, the institutions may be very helpful. But the more experience I have with churches and ministers the more the feeling grows on me that the church that is needed today is not so much the institutional church as the evangelistic church.