I'm Pro-Denominational!

That's right, I'm all for them! That certainly isn't a popular stance right now, but mine none the less.

Keith Drury dealt with this in his blog with 7 advantages of a denomination. However, his has more to do with why a preacher might choose to be in a denomination. My reasoning has more to do with local churches (including the local pastor) and more general reasons why denominations are a positive thing for the church!

1) Accountability: A local church can get off track sometimes; pragmatically, theologically, and even morally. A denomination holds the local church & pastor accountable for how they do what they do (orthopraxy), what they believe (orthodoxy), and their moral integrity. This is positive thing although it can easily be trumped if an immoral or heretical pastor leaves the denomination he/she is a part of and starts his/her own non-denominational church!

2) Combined Resources: A local church is often hard pressed to support a full-time pastor, not to mention a missionary to go to the other side of the world. But if one local church joins with all the other churches in the denomination they can! (Christian education, printing Christian literature, etc could also be included here.)

3) Super-pastors welcome, but not necessary: While it can happen within denominations it seems that the idolization of pastors is less frequent. Yes it can happen to some degree, but it usually does not. Most of the famous pastor's names that you could come up with are probably non-denominational. Most "star pastors" are non-denominational, maybe because they prefer to be uninhibited or unaccountable to the larger church. Denominations have a tendency to care less about individual "star" pastors and more about the purpose of the church being fulfilled.

4) Unity: While the word denomination has to do with dividing, in reality the most divisive Christians are the "non-denominational" or "independent" churches. While I'm not a big fan of radical ecumenism (because of it's tendency to water down and push toward liberalism) I do believe in Christian unity. A non-denominational church is really a denomination of only one church.

Yes there are some negative aspects I suppose...

1) Organization requires administration: Some denominational leaders do nothing more than fulfilling administrative functions. (Although administration is listed as one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:28.)

2) Necessity of a human hierarchy is susceptible to infiltration of worldly & sinful ways of operating. By necessity there is a polity, even of an individual local church, but as that infrastructure grows and more administrative things are necessary so too can the susceptibility of corruption of that polity grow. If there is a polity, it will not be long before there will be a corrupt politician.

3) Nepotism. (Although it could be argued that it would be more rampant in a non-denominational church. Joel Olsteen replaced his father.)

4) There is sometimes a call to allegiance to the denomination rather than the Savior. So an attitude of exclusivity may develop (that is: no other denomination will make it to heaven).

Let me stray from the subject for a moment...

What is interesting about the non-denominational church in general is that some of the larger churches are forming denominations while maintaining their non-denominational title! It's not cool to be part of a denomination so they are re-labeling! For example lifechurch.tv calls it "networking" (a loose congregational style denomination using similar material) and "uniting" (almost a cult like adherence through video sermons from the "mother church").

They have re-packaged denominations in such a way that they are cool!

If you are going to a non-denominational church I would encourage you to ask the following questions to your pastor or pastoral staff:

1) Where did you come from? Was it a denomination? Why did you leave a denomination? Why are you part of a non-denominational church?

2) What are the beliefs/doctrine of the local church?

Denominations will come out of this fight in the end. They will weather the fad and "emerge" (I really hate to use that word) from the fray. Why? Because they have structure, stability, and stamina.

As for me, I'll be part of a denomination!