The Evangel Dean Basic Training Resource Handbook

290 • T HE E VANGEL D EAN B ASIC T RAINING R ESOURCE H ANDBOOK

d. Churches that are alone often find it difficult if not impossible to fund and underwrite their mission and projects which flow from their vision. e. Churches that are alone tend to exaggerate the importance of everything they experience in their body as being binding on the conscience and practice of all believers everywhere.

B. That We May Be One (John 17): Toward a Theology of Church Association

Please refer to “That We May Be One: Elements of an Integrated Church Planting Movement among the Urban Poor” in Planting Churches among the City’s Poor: An Anthology of Urban Church Planting Resources , Vol. 2, p. 152.

It is a most invaluable part of that blessed “liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” that in his worship different forms and usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire; and that, in every Church, what cannot be clearly determined to belong to Doctrine must be referred to Discipline; and therefore, by common consent and authority, may be altered, abridged, enlarged, amended, or otherwise disposed of, as may seem most convenient for the edification of the people, “according to the various exigency of times and occasions.”

~ 1789 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer . 1928 Episcopal edition.

Nevertheless, as was affirmed by the emerging leaders of the then American Episcopal Church, the freedom that we have in Christ allows for different forms and usages of worship in the body of Christ without any offense whatsoever, as long as we are faithful to the historic orthodox beliefs of the Church as taught to us by the prophets and apostles of our Lord. Doctrine must remain anchored and complete; discipline, however, can be based on the contingencies and exigencies of the people who embrace them, as long as all that is shaped and conceived builds up the body of Christ, and glorifies God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.