T.Austin-Sparks and Local Church 5 - Features of a Local Church

In this article we'll look at what Sparks finally says on what he considers the essential features of a true local Church.

He says:

THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF A TRUE LOCAL CHURCH?

We are seeking to keep close and true to the overall principle that the Church -- universal and local -- is called to be an expression of Christ. It is impossible to read the New Testament without seeing that the presence of Christ anywhere was the presence of

1. Heavenly light and power

This we have just indicated as the basis of His judgment of churches (in Revelation 1-3).

With Him it was not only the light of teaching or doctrine. It was teaching personified. There was the teaching incarnated in manhood. His teaching and His works were one. It was very practical light! It was light from another world. If the stars ruled the night they did so by the reflected light of the sun. If the churches are to have the power of truth it must be because they give a rebound of Christ upon human darkness. A local expression of Christ should mean that there is effective light, both for the Lord's people (the candlesticks) and for the world (the stars). The people who have contact with such a local church should feel the power of the teaching, should be affected by it, and it should be fruitful in them. This is not only a test, but it is a testimony to what the Lord has provided for. A people living in the good of the heavenly light received through that vessel? Is sin rebuked and exposed? Are sinners convicted? Do the perplexed get understanding in that presencing of Christ?

2. Heavenly life

The Lord said that His very coming into this world was "that they might have life". Therefore, His presence in a locality by means of the church there should mean that all who come and go register a heavenly livingness. Not just excitableness, noise, activity, etc., but a life which is not of this world. There are not dead forms and customs. There is nothing in a rut. Life is mediated by all that has a
place and a part. There is a spiritual lift as of resurrection life! No depression!

3. Heavenly food

Yet again, as we have seen earlier, the presence of Christ meant bread for the hungry. The very "compassion" of Christ meant that He could not bear to have people come hungry and go away the same. A true local expression of Christ will mean that that company of His people will have, not only enough for themselves, but the margin, or overflow to all the hungry -- spiritually hungry. That will be a house of bread where none ever fails to be fed. The food will not be just localized, but will be ministered to many beyond.

4. Heavenly fellowship

An impressive feature of Christ when personally present among men was the way He transcended the things which divide men in this world. He made no attempt to make everyone and everything uniform by organization, institution, denomination, class, category, forms, systems, etc. Every type and temperament, if free from prejudice and hypocrisy and of open heart and conscious of spiritual need, found a common ground of fellowship and oneness in Him. He just rose above the dividing things, and in response to Him people found that things which had separated them just vanished. Christ became their common ground.

Thus should it be in any local corporate expression of Christ. Questions of association, denomination, sect, tradition, etc., should not arise, but just vanish in the presence of the warmth of fellowship and entire occupation with Christ. The only effective way of true unity, heavenly fellowship, is that of the higher than earthly ground -- the love of heaven.

5. Heavenly order

All the four things which we have mentioned as characteristic of a true local expression of the Church and of Christ will be helped or hindered by the presence or absence of a heavenly, spiritual order. All appointments, positions, "offices", should be by the definite witness of the Holy Spirit; not by man's choosing, whether by others or by the person's ambition. As the result of much prayer by the church it should be manifest where anointing and gift rests, so that the function of those in any position of leadership should definitely mean that the church is inspired, strengthened and built up. Failing this heavenly order, there will exist an element of artificiality, a straining to make something and keep it going. The highest level of genius will fall far short of the smallest measure of Divine inspiration. It is this Divine inspiration that determines all Divine service and functions. There is no effort or strain where the anointing rests, but spontaneity and liberty and unction. Oil has ever been a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and where He is things should move as in oil.

This is not at all an impossible standard, but the normal expression of the Lordship and Headship of Christ.

What God requires He makes possible.

To me the key element talked about by Sparks is in the teaching being personified in a people. We are after all a people being read by all men. If we in deed personify, or have Christ manifested in our lives, it will be of great glory to Him on behalf of those doing the reading, as well as meet His purpose and demands for the reasons for the local Church in the first place, which is to embody Christ.