Charlton Rhinehart

Around the turn of the century into the 1900’s there was a division happening in the restoration movement. The churches of Christ were splitting and the Christian Church was forming in the process. The divisive factors leading up to that split had been growing for years, but by 1906 the split was official. The two most prominent factors in this division were instrumental music in worship and the use of Missionary Societies in the church. If you are a member of the church of Christ then you are likely very familiar with the scriptural issues surrounding instrumental music; but unfortunately also if you are a member of the church then you are likely unfamiliar with Missionary Societies. There is a reason why we don’t hear much talk about these institutions today even though they were a major factor in our restoration history. I firmly believe that these societies have been intentionally forgotten, because their modern application now hits way too close to home.

A Missionary Society was an organization, institution, or arranged co-operative that combined congregation’s efforts, formed combined leadership, and combined congregation’s finances to carry out various works. There were many various Missionary Societies that the Christian Church established. Some examples include: The American Christian Missionary Society, Illinois Christian Missionary Society, Home Society, Women’s Society, and the Foreign Christian Missionary Society. There was a long list of these societies, many of them having various branches of focus. Some of these organizations focused on foreign missionary work, some of them were intended for stateside missionary work, some of them were used to pay preachers, some to build church buildings, some were to help orphans or widows, to give loans to struggling churches and many similar works like we see denominations collectively doing through their headquarters, yet the Christian Church still claimed to be non-denominational. These societies were financially supported through congregations voluntarily when their elder’s chose which ones to support, but there was also a sense of obligation among Christian Churches to support at least some of them. This ever-growing list of Societies were achieving so many good works that the individuals supporting them were convinced that they had to be pleasing to God. These individuals were willing to divide the body of Christ to establish the societies. But not everything that is good, is right.

Some of the churches of Christ however saw through all the good that was taking place by these establishments and asked the simple question, “are they authorized?” The temptation to be blinded by achievements that seem so good could not allow these societies to go without question. Were they scriptural? Do these institutions match the pattern of the New Testament church? The Missionary Society was no where in the scriptures, nothing in the pages of the New Testament could be compared to them. These institutions were not the local church, there was no scriptural design as to how they should be set up, who should be in charge of them, what those leader’s qualifications should be, where these organizations should get their funding, or what their allowed purpose is. Out of all the great physical needs of the first century, orphans, widows, the spreading gospel, churches being established, and preachers being trained, no society or similar organization was ever put in place as our inspired example. The church – the local church – the autonomous local congregation was what God had established and the local church had the responsibility to cary out the works assigned by God. This could not be delegated to a man-made organization or society that would handle these troubles for them. The church of our Lord was designed with elders and deacons with inspired qualifications yet the more powerful decisions of these collective societies were made by committees, a board of directors, and a chairman. The local church was to care for its own members in need, not an outside group with a separate treasury. The local church was to give to a sister congregation in need, not through an organization (Acts 11:28-30; Rom 15:26; 1 Cor 16:1-2; 2 Cor 8 & 9). The church was to evangelize and teach the gospel to the world and they were not to loose their knowledge of scriptures because they delegated that to a society. The churches could not combine their leadership and their funds to form anything beyond what God authorized. While Christians could work together and our efforts achieve the same goal, we could not establish a collective society of our own design. The Missionary Society was not an establishment that anyone restoring the church of the Bible could support, and so the churches of Christ rightfully opposed these additions of the time.

There is yet another piece of our history that needs to be told as we address these societies, the sponsoring arrangement. The Missionary Societies arose in the mid and late 1800’s and continued their departure away with the Christian Church in the early 1900’s, but man’s desire to establish similar organizations and great works continued to arise in the Lord’s church. In the 1950’s and 60’s a method was made common that gave us a different structure for these same organizations, it was the church sponsoring arrangement. Under this title an eldership of one congregation could “sponsor” a work, their elders would oversee a work just as God intended for His church carry out efforts. But the departure came as these works intentionally grew beyond the work of a single congregation. Other congregations were asked to support the work by giving funds through the sponsoring congregation. Hence, the sponsoring eldership was no longer managing the contribution and efforts of their own flock, but several congregation’s efforts were now being controlled by a single eldership. Lots of excuses can be made to try and justify the sponsoring arrangement, such as how the giving congregations were giving voluntarily or under their own elder’s decision, but they found themselves making the exact same excuses as the contributors to the Missionary Societies a few decades before them. Another aspect of the sponsoring arrangement was that the work being supported often ended up controlling whole congregations in other locations. For example, a sponsoring church and eldership would not just support a preacher the way we see Paul was supported (2 Cor 11:8; Phil 4:18), but whole congregations were being supplied and ruled over by a distant eldership. God never meant for one eldership to oversee another congregation (1 Pet 5:2). Likewise, the works supported from a combined sponsored arrangement such as evangelism would grow so large that the overseeing elders could no longer manage them, hence boards and committees had be established to really run what the elders claimed to be in control of. The sponsoring arrangement was satisfying to many wanting to justify a larger organization in the church. The arrangement provided a way to claim that a single church was carrying out a work just like we see with the local church in scripture, but the details of how the sponsoring arrangement really operates are just as ugly and identical to a separate society organization.

It is time we look at ourselves today as the church of Christ. What have we become? If these Missionary Societies that were so clearly wrong and divisive to the body of Christ have been so easily forgotten, have we once again fallen for the same structures with a different name? Perhaps just a look at a few of our own efforts will reveal that, maybe even the efforts I once held dearly to need to be examined. Gospel Broadcasting Network, GBN is one of those efforts that I loved. GBN is overseen (sponsored) by the elders of Southhaven church of Christ. They are supported by many Christians and congregations, the elders have setup a “management team” made up of men from various congregations along with a director that many of us love. One of the problems is that it is not scriptural for a work to be funded by more than one congregation, let alone hundreds of congregations. Money is a powerful influencer, and God knew that when he designed the local church to be autonomous in giving. God’s gospel cannot be subject to mass funding such as the way that GBN is funded. GBN is an organization that is not the local church, it may claim to be controlled by a single congregation, but many congregations are clearly linked together by this enterprise in an unscriptural way. Am I too convinced by GBN’s good to question them against what I now understand?

The school of preaching in your area is another institution to consider, they are most all organized the same way, an overseeing eldership, a board of directors and a main director, supported by many congregations and Christians. Did God intend for such an institution to hold so much influence over all the preachers and doctrines of His church in a region? Did He intend each congregation to be independent while our preachers were to be connected to an alumni? As we see the failures of the Christian universities we often become strong believers in the schools of preaching, but it took me a long time to realize that we have only created another departure from scripture in the process. Foreign schools of preaching sometimes take this departure even a step further, the director will reside with the school in the foreign land, but the sponsoring congregation and eldership will not even be in the same country. How can those elders really know what the work needs and be intimately involved with it as God intends elders to know their flock? In reality it does not matter if the sponsoring congregation is near or far, neither setup permits elders to delegate their work to a director or a board. And while it is the work of the church to teach, a congregation is not authorized to establish a school institution. We are the church alone that Christ instituted. We cannot create and combine staff from other flocks to be subject to additional shepherds, and we cannot combine church funds in a way that these institutes do.

World Bible School, WBS likewise is an organization with many great achievements, however our efforts become vain when we break the pattern for God’s organization. WBS began to grow many years ago by receiving funding from many congregations. The organization does not feel the need to hide behind the sponsoring arrangement, but operates simply with a president and board. The Bible correspondence that WBS does is a great purpose, but this work that should have been done simply by Christians working together or by individual congregations has been made into a great organization. If you are familiar with WBS‘s corruption in preaching and worship in foreign lands (such as their Gospel Chariot Missions), then you can see the results of creating an institution out of simple good works. In a similar manner the beauty of previously listed sponsored works also loose their luster when you know the details of the compromises that happen for funding and political relations among churches.

The Church of Christ Disaster Relief is an organization we all know well. They operate with a board of directors made up of both men and women. Just like WBS there is no sponsoring church, there is no longer a need in the brotherhood to disguise behind that screen. A quick look at this CoC Relief corporation tells you there is no real agreement on doctrine and no emphasis on the uniqueness of the church from the religious world. Congregations from all over are encouraged to give and congregations from all over give to the organization without question. Conservative and liberal congregations send their contributions, even businesses contribute, those contributions are combined and handed out to anyone in need. Teachings are not emphasized, but giving is. Where are the scriptural qualifications for these board members to even be members of the church when there is no example for such a central agency? What passage would we turn to read about this organization? We read of congregations helping needy saints, congregations gave to the church at Jerusalem during famine, but there was not a separate corporation built to manage it for them. When we replace the institution of God – the local church, we then replace elders and deacons with board members, we replace scriptural qualifications with our own man-made qualifications, and the trend continues as we replace God’s doctrines with our own. With this corporation doctrine has not only taken a back seat but it has gone out the window. Our great intentions are heart warming by our own feelings as we behold the good we accomplish, but the church of our Lord becomes unrecognizable from the denominational world and foreign to the scriptures.

The examples could continue on, I could spend more time in research and tell of how many thousands of dollars roll through each agency per year. Or perhaps I could list how many hundreds of congregation give to each group and what some of those congregations practice. For the schools I could show how many congregations are influenced by the doctrines decided by a school’s directors, or how many congregations they have to please to continue their funding – but I hope that you can begin to see what took me so long to arrive at. Whether we look at conservative or liberal efforts among churches involved with these institutions, these works that have become organizations and institutions are simply modern day Missionary Societies. Not only have we forgotten what Missionary Societies were, we have become totally wrapped up in them under different names but with the same oversight, structure, and funding. Some of them have hidden under a sponsoring eldership, some of them no longer hide at all. Satan doesn’t need to disguise these arrangements anymore because so much of the church has lost the desire for true restoration.

The local church is God’s only divine institution for Christians to work together. The work of the church is to preach the gospel to the saved and lost, to teach and encourage members, to care for needy members, restore the erring, and worship our Lord.¹ When we endeavor to expand our efforts beyond what God has authorized for us we may impress ourselves but we are rejecting God’s eternal plan for the kingdom. When we establish additional church institutions that are not scriptural in structure, organization, or funding we are telling God that His church is insufficient and that we know how to run His work better. It was the church that the gates of Hell was promised to never overcome and it was the church that Jesus built – not man (Matt 16:18). It was the church with specific instructions for work, structure, giving, and worship that God designed. It is not our place to combine congregations, treasuries, and leadership into our own designs. It is not scriptural for these central agencies to solicit, combine, oversee, and distribute funds that the local church alone is to manage. In the same way it is the local church that is to teach and preach, not a combined institution working like a denominational head destined for corruption. We can become blinded by all the good we can accomplish by creating these enterprises, but the standard and instruction for us is what we are accountable for, no amount of good can ever replace our responsibility to hold to God’s all sufficient instruction for the church He planned from the foundation of the world. Of all the authors of the scriptures over thousands of years, things that even the angels longed to understand all led up to the kingdom of God made up of autonomous congregations, it is a design we have no right to alter.

A final example that relates to all these matters is found in the life of W.W. Otey. Brother Otey was born in 1867, and he was a young man in 1908 when he challenged the aged and skilled debater J.B. Briney from the Christian Church to a debate on these matters. The debate concerned instrumental music and of course, Missionary Societies. The young farmer W.W. Otey gave an impressive summery, challenge, and defense showing that these societies had no place in the church despite his young age and limited preaching experience. While reading the debate I had to stop and look up to see if Otey lived to see the split over institutionalism in the 50’s and 60’s. If so what was Otey’s position during those times? Brother Otey did live a long life, and in 1951 Otey published a book titled “Living Issues”. In the book Otey wrote of the man-made institutions he saw forming in the church giving examples from his time, and he also wrote about the Missionary Societies that he knew so well. Brother Otey made dozens of comparisons between the societies, the institutions and sponsored works in the book Living Issues. He showed how the arguments for the institutions being formed were identical to the unscriptural arguments given for Missionary Societies. While some men changed their positions when The Gospel Advocate’s quarantine was published and fellowship issues became serious, W.W. Otey remained faithful exposing the similarities between the societies, the sponsoring works, and the institutions.

The sad truth is that we have forgotten what the Missionary Society was and we have forgotten to care about the design of the church in the scriptures. We are packed full of Missionary Societies, central agencies, institutions, and sponsored works. The efforts of the church that are dearest to our hearts are often the ones furthest from scripture. While we teach many distinct truths we have failed to see the log in our own eye that has grown larger and larger in our lifetime. Perhaps these words have brought you to realize what we have created for the first time, I hope you consider these matters in full honesty. The church of the Bible is non-institutional, that is not a biased statement, it is a fact. There are no various church institutions in the New Testament except for the local church itself. We cannot claim that something we create is part of the church when we cannot find anything like it in scripture. There are divine reasons why God did not design these organizations in His plan. When God gave Noah the instructions for the ark Noah wasn’t saved by improving God’s plan, rather we know Noah was righteous because he followed God’s design exactly (Gen 6:22,7:1,5). We can achieve great things through God’s design, by His authorized institution the local church when we get back to upholding her responsibilities. The desire to try to achieve more will always be a temptation for some, but we have to learn that God’s way is the only way that is right and truly good. There is only one blood-bought church of Christ that saves, that church serves God and His children through God’s design alone.

“Now these things, brethren… you might learn not to exceed what is written…” 1 Cor 4:6

“Now I praise you because you remember me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you.” 1 Cor 11:2

1. W.W. Otey, Living Issues (Austin, TX: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1951), pp. 27, 49. ↩︎