Nowhere does the Bible prescribe a polity for the universal church, that body of all Christians everywhere. The only other definition for church in the New Testament is of the local assembly. While no church constitution is included in the New Testament documents, the Bible has principles which inform a congregation's life. And the New Testament has explicit teachings on church structure. Both the officers and polity described in the New Testament have led many Christians to conclude that the church should be structured congregationally. This has implications for how one congregation relates to other congregations and to other connections of Christians outside their number. And it has implications for how leadership is exercised within the congregation.
Local and Universal
A congregational church recognizes the congregation as the final earthly court of appeal in matters of dispute. Members' meetings are held where decisions are made by voting. Naturally, a higher degree of consensus is needed than in churches of other polities. More responsibility rests on each member, and more authority resides in them. As Jonathan Leeman argued so carefully and clearly, "Even with all its imperfections, the church represents Jesus on earth."1
Relations Between Congregations
Such congregations have sometimes been called "independent" as opposed to "connectionalist," like Presbyterian or Episcopalian churches. Congregationalist churches are not, however, independent of one another in affection, care, advice, or cooperation. Both in Scripture and in history, congregations have cultivated care and concern for one another. In the New Testament period, collections were taken and given, missionaries and teachers were sent, and recommendations and cautions were shared between congregations. This pattern has repeated itself among Anabaptist and Baptist congregations, as well as among many other congregational churches.
Traditionally, Baptists have used associations between churches to help ministers and congregations take counsel with one another, reach joint conclusions, stop controversies, and draw doctrinal boundaries. And congregations have freely come together to accomplish work that would generally exceed the resources of one congregation, such as ministerial education and missionary support. Congregational churches are in one narrow sense "independent," but in other ways they are more accurately described as voluntarily interdependent.
Denominational Relationships
Voluntary connections of congregations like the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Baptist Churches, and the National Baptist Convention long ago settled into the popular American consciousness as denominations. Many if not most other denominations are connectional churches where final decisions on matters of doctrine and discipline cannot be handled by the local assemblies but must be decided by regional, national, or even internationally recognized assemblies, courts, or bishops. However, denominations of congregational churches are far different from other denominations.2
One can speak in the singular of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America or of the United Methodist Church in a way one could never correctly speak of the National Baptist Church or the Southern Baptist Church. While it is commonly understood what such expressions mean, they reveal an ignorance about the nature of the churches they mean to describe. Even if members of congregational churches sometimes exhibit great "tribal loyalty" to their denomination, they are actually only members of local churches which themselves in turn only voluntarily and never necessarily cooperate with regional and national bodies. Their congregations need not continue to affiliate with any particular convention in order to continue being a true church.
Congregationalism with Leadership
None of the aforesaid teaching on congregationalism should be mistaken as advocating leaderless anarchy in churches.3 Recognizing the congregation as the final court of appeal for matters of dispute is hardly inimical to the exercise of authority within the church. And other noncongregational polities, including Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and even Roman Catholic, have demonstrated a certain inevitability of congregationalism by recognizing representative bodies at various levels and even by advising congregational assent for many decisions to be enacted.
Elder Led, Congregationally Governed
The most coherent way to understand the New Testament's presentation of local church polity is to recognize the role of both individual leaders and the congregation as a whole.4 Some recommend a pastor should govern the church almost like a CEO. But this gives inadequate attention to Scripture's teaching on both the plurality of elders and the role of the whole congregation. Others recommend the church should be governed by elders. This position is rightly distinguished from Presbyterianism because it does not simultaneously envision submitting to a hierarchy of authority outside the local congregation's body of elders. But while this position helpfully discerns what the New Testament says about a plurality of elders, it also discounts the scriptural evidence for both congregational responsibility and the special recognition of a lead teaching elder, like Timothy in Ephesus—what might today be described as a "senior pastor." Still others recommend a vigorous congregationalism that is exercised at the expense of any other authority, whether corporate (a plurality of elders) or individual (a lead pastor).
Too often these varieties of congregationalism are pitted against one another.5 But all three aspects of authority seen in the New Testament (individual, plural eldership, and congregational) should be enjoyed in every congregation. One elder supported by the church and responsible for the ministry of the Word could well be recognized as having a senior position in order to give leadership to the church's vision and direction. At the same time, a plurality of elders, whether paid or unpaid, can together lead the congregation in matters of doctrine and discipline. And at the same time, the congregation can, in humility, shoulder the responsibility for acting as the final court, under God, in all matters of discipline and doctrine which rise to that level of significance. Which matters are dealt with at what level may vary from congregation to congregation. Of course, this congregational authority seems to be merely authority to affirm or deny the assertion of teaching (or teachers) and of members, not to lead. The congregation is not in competition with the elders. The congregation's authority is more like an emergency brake than a steering wheel. The congregation more normally recognizes than creates, responds rather than initiates, confirms rather than proposes.
The New Testament teaches the significance of congregational assent for what must be taught and believed (e.g., Gal 1:6–9) and for who is admitted and dismissed from membership (e.g., 1 Corinthians 5; 2 Cor 2:6–7). The local assembly bears final (though not sole) responsibility for these two crucial aspects of the church, the teaching and the membership. In fact, it is by congregations so judging teaching and members that they exercise the keys Christ has entrusted to his church (see Matt 16:19; 18:17).6
In Matthew 16, Jesus authorized the apostolic church to affirm or deny professions of faith (e.g., who is Jesus?), and in Matthew 18 Jesus authorized the church to affirm or deny how such a profession is lived out (e.g., will a sinner repent?). Galatians 1:6–9 speaks of the church judging doctrine, even as 1 Corinthians 5 is a call to the church to judge the life which is to validate the profession.
For all of its authority, the local congregation has no authority to delegate the keys to another group. It may go outside itself for counsel and advice, but the ultimate responsibility for determining teaching or membership in the local church may not be outsourced to any body outside of itself. Any such delegation by the congregation undermines its claims to be a biblically ordered church.7 The New Testament's teaching on the nature of the congregation and the role of its leaders clearly indicates that a biblically faithful church is a congregational church.
1 Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 195.
2 The Free Will Baptist tradition has a history of more connectionalism than most other Baptists in America. See J. Matthew Pinson, Free Will Baptists & Church Government (Nashville: National Association of Free Will Baptists, 2008).
3 Stanton Norman wrestled with the current Southern Baptist tension between congregationalism and leadership in his book, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church (Nashville: B&H, 2005), 101–10.
4 See Phil Newton, Elders in Congregational Life: Rediscovering the Biblical Model for Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2005); Benjamin L. Merkle, Why Elders? A Biblical and Practical Guide for Church Members (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009); Daniel Evans and Joseph Godwin Jr., Elder Governance: Insights into Making the Transition (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2011).
5 E.g., Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government.
6 For further reflection on "the keys," see Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love, chap. 4.
7 One obvious qualification of this statement is that times of a church's beginning and ending may well bring with it exceptional circumstances which call for temporary measures in which one or more of these aspects of leadership are not yet fully realized.