What Providence Believes About the Church

The local church is not an accessory to the Christian life — it is the focal point of God's plan to mature his people and save sinners. Here is what that means, and why it matters.

The Church Is Christ's — and He Rules It Through His Word

Everything about the church's authority traces back to one source. 'We believe that Jesus Christ reigns as head over his church and he gives to his church elders or pastors to govern and lead local churches under his authority.' ^[2] That last phrase — *under his authority* — is the load-bearing piece. Elders don't generate authority from themselves. Their authority is, as the language goes, 'granted to them only by extension of their fidelity to Christ's lordship, and that lordship is expressed specifically in his inerrant and authoritative word.' ^[5] The authority Christ gives to the church resides in his Word, and it finds expression through the ministers of that Word. ^[5]

This means elders are best understood as 'Christ's representatives — an extension of Christ's care and leadership.' ^[5] They are not CEOs. They are not a board of directors. They are under-shepherds — men whom Christ has appointed to do what he himself is doing for his people, which is teaching, ruling, caring, and protecting. ^[SF] The whole structure of church government flows from that one prior reality: Jesus is head, and everything else is derivative.

Elder Rule: One Office, Equal Authority, No Subclasses

One of the things this pulpit keeps returning to is clarity about what elders actually are — and what they are not. 'The New Testament office of Elder is one office with two distinct groups or classes of men. These two classes are equal in rank and authority, but they are named by their distinctive function or task. Ruling elders are those who govern and rule the church. Teaching elders are those who have the special task of preaching in addition to ruling and governing the church.' ^[1] The terms elder, pastor, and overseer are used synonymously in Scripture — 'the same position, the same responsibilities to teach and to care.' ^[5]

What this rules out is a tiered eldership where some men get to make decisions but aren't accountable to actually shepherd people. 'No category for guys that just sort of get to make decisions but don't have to pastor people. Don't have to be teaching people. Aren't responsible to make sure they know their theological head from their feet. All elders are pastors with the same calling and commission.' ^[5] One man might carry the title of senior pastor, 'but he's not more of an elder than another guy. An elder is an elder is an elder.' ^[5] That structure isn't organizational tidiness — it's a safeguard for the flock.

The scope of what elders are charged to do is broad. They have oversight over the congregation ^[5], mediate disputes between brothers ^[5], judge in doctrinal issues ^[5], guard the gospel against false teaching ^[5], and use 'the keys of the Kingdom to bind and to loose.' ^[5] Elders are also called to raise up faithful men who will do the same after them — to find, teach, and commission the next generation of ministers of the Word. ^[5] 'We believe that men qualified by both character and gifting are to serve as elders, shepherding God's people as under-shepherds of Christ.' ^[2]

The Marks of a True Church: Word, Sacraments, and Discipline

Not every gathering that calls itself a church is functioning as one. A true church is marked by three things: 'the faithful preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and the proper exercise of church discipline.' ^[SF] These aren't decorative categories — they are the diagnostic. Pull any one of them out and the church's capacity to do its work collapses.

The sacraments — baptism and the Lord's Supper — are not peripheral rituals. They are 'a means of grace when they're administered, but also a means of convicting discipline when they're withheld.' ^[3] Together, they do complementary work: 'Baptism is a sacrament of initiation. It initiates an individual visibly into the body of Christ... Communion, the Lord's Supper, is a sacrament of ongoing unity, ongoing membership, ongoing fellowship and participation with Christ and His church.' ^[3] One brings you in; the other sustains you in.

Church discipline is bound up in this same logic. When a person is excommunicated, what is actually happening is that 'they're being removed from participation in the Lord's Supper. They're being excommunicated, removed from communion. That's happening because the genuineness of their faith is in question by the way they're living their life.' ^[3] The sacraments are, in this way, not just pastoral tools — they are the church's ongoing public testimony about who belongs to Christ and who is walking in the light.

Baptism: Initiation Into the One Body

Baptism's purpose is to 'portray the Gospel — to use powerful imagery. It's designed to act out the drama. The saving work of Jesus Christ on our behalf in redemption.' ^[4] It is not primarily a personal milestone or a private declaration — it is a corporate event. 'That's why you do baptism as a church, because it's a means of grace you celebrate corporately as God's people.' ^[6] One person professes their faith in Christ to the gathered body; the gathered body expresses affirmation of their faith in Christ and says, in effect, *we concur, we agree, you are saved and you are one of us.* ^[3]

Baptism is also, by design, a once-for-all act. 'Paul has no notion in Romans 6 of people constantly being baptized. In the same way Christ died once and was raised once from the grave, you all were baptized once.' ^[4] The impulse to be re-baptized — however understandable — misunderstands the relationship between baptism and the Lord's Supper. 'The Lord's Supper is meant to function the way your re-baptizing is trying to function. You gather with the people and you celebrate the imagery of Christ's death and His resurrection.' ^[4] Baptism starts the story; the table repeats and renews it.

The Lord's Supper: Fellowship, Proclamation, and Means of Grace

The Lord's Supper is not a bare memorial any more than baptism is a bare symbol. It is a sign and a seal — 'a sign of what Christ has accomplished' and 'a seal, a pledge of assurance that just as we see the bread broken and the cup shared, we know that Christ was truly offered for our redemption on the cross.' ^[3] The Supper 'was a memorial, a proclamation' ^[3], and in it 'we remember these things so that our faith is strengthened through the Spirit's power. It's a means of grace.' ^[3]

Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 10 ties the Supper directly to the unity of the body. 'The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation, a koinonia, a sharing of a common life in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation, a sharing of a common life, a koinonia in the body of Christ?' ^[6] We come to the table not as isolated individuals rehearsing a private transaction, but as the body of believers. 'Communion is partaken only by believers who've publicly embraced the gospel.' ^[3] It is, in Paul's logic, the church making visible what is already true: because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. ^[3]

Membership, Fellowship, and the Visible Unity of the Church

'Paul has no notion of an unchurched Christian.' ^[3] That sentence alone dismantles the most common escape route from church membership. If you are baptized, you are part of the body, and nobody in Paul's world wasn't part of the body. ^[3] The Statement of Faith makes the same claim in positive terms: 'all Christians are to join themselves as committed members to a specific local church.' ^[SF] Committed membership is not a cultural add-on to Christianity — it is what Christianity looks like when it is actually practiced.

The picture of genuine fellowship is vivid and physical. The church is described as 'a different kind of crowd, a different kind of crush. We're not pushing each other out of the way to get exclusive access to Jesus. We're pushing each other together, crushing each other towards the vine, pressing each other into Jesus.' ^[6] This is what the Gospel does to community. It does not produce isolated spiritual consumers who attend events. It produces people who 'share a common life' — the literal meaning of *koinonia.* ^[6]

And that unity is not just local. Elders in local churches working together with elders from other churches build 'ecclesiastical unions of churches' — groups of elders who 'recognize, we are together, we are united for the sake of the Gospel, we are building and showing and making visible what is invisible. Namely, that there is a universal church over whom Christ is the head.' ^[5] The local church is the focal point ^[SF], but it is not the whole picture. What happens in one room on one Sunday is a visible expression of something that spans every nation and every century where Christ has called people to himself.

This page synthesizes what Chris Oswald has preached on ecclesiology at Providence Community Church. Every claim above traces to the cited sermons — follow any citation to read the full sermon, listen to the audio, and see the surrounding context. Minute marks are approximate, estimated from each sermon's transcript.