“One” Church, a reality bigger than the local church

In France, evangelicals have been reflecting on the Church for a number of years. CNEF published The Church, churches, and organizations in 2016. In the same year, the APC Union distributed a thirty-page text to church leaders called The Biblical Foundations of APC/FPC.

More recently, the FEF Network’s 2023 and 2024 seminars addressed the same subject. I encourage you to watch the presentations given by Roland Frauli, Matthieu Gangloff and Erwan Cloarec on the FEF Network YouTube channel.

Most of us will recognize that the New Testament (NT) speaks of the Church in two forms: the universal Church and the local Churches. According to Émile Nicole, the local Church and the universal Church are “two different ways of perceiving and designing one single reality^[1]“.

For Example, the universal aspect can be found in Ephesians 5.25: “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” or Acts 20.28 “Be shepherds of the Church of God, which He bought with His own blood”.

On several occasions, the NT authors mention the local Church in a way that implies the universal Church. The expression is not “the Church of such and such a place”, but rather literally, “the Church which is in this or that place or house^[2]”^[3]. It is the “One” Church that meets in such and such a place.

“Local churches are therefore the realization of the Church “in Christ” in given places, and not “parts” or “fragments” of that Church^[4]”. They are expressions of the “One” Church.

An intermediate dimension is also found in the NT between the “One” Church and its local manifestations. This dimension is very present in the NT: local churches are in relationship with one another. These relationships are expressed in various ways: local churches working together in ministries (Paul and his coworkers, for example), financial solidarity, letters, representatives of churches, the Council of Jerusalem^[5] etc.

The Biblical Foundations of APC/FPC says: “In contrast to the structure of the local church, to which the NT gives a precise rule […], the intermediate structure is neither ordered nor precisely defined! Yet it exists and is often present […] It is this major presence, even if it is often ignored, this Biblical precedence, which should encourage us to take it into consideration. If an intermediate structure had a reason to exist then, it is likely to still have one today^[6].”

In their recent document Being and Living “One” Church, the FEF network confesses that: “The motivations behind partnerships have often been less spiritual and theological but rather functional and pragmatic, and similarly, ways of experiencing the local Church have sometimes suffered from the same tendency^[7].” We must therefore live the “One” Church, not for the pragmatic reasons behind working together, but for theological reasons!

I will finish by adding something personal. When I attended youth group regularly in the 2000s, a speaker from the outside told me one day about what was happening in the evangelical world in France. The 2001 request for forgiveness, which is in my opinion the key event in the recent history of the French evangelical Church, was opening up new perspectives of living the “One” Church in France. It brought me great joy. I invite you to watch this video (in French) which recounts this historic event.

Philippe Brobecker

^[1] Émile NICOLE, “L’Église selon le Nouveau Testament “, Les Cahiers de l’École pastorale 31, 1999, p. 6.
^[2] 1 Corinthians 1.2.
^[3] L’Église, les Églises et les œuvres, Marpent, BLF Éditions, 2019, p. 35.
^[4] Ibid.
^[5] Acts 15.
^[6] Fondements bibliques d’APC/FPC, 2.2.1.1.
^[7] Être et vivre l’Église “Une”, article 5, https://reseaufef.com/declaration-commune-8-unions-membres-sengagent-a-vivre-leglise-une-ensemble, 2024.