I give this advice from the history of my own home church which was founded in 1881. This practice is IIRC also noted with approval in Hiscox's Directory. This being a case where being a daughter church is not possible.
In God's providence, a group of NT believers finds themselves in a location where there is no local NT church for them to transfer their membership. (In our case, the previous six churchs were located "downtown". Our founding group was located in a newer residental area. With no public transportation, except for horse drawn trollies and cable cars, reaching the established church was very difficult.) This group after some informal discussions:</font>
- formally gathers together.</font>
- elects a presiding officer and recording secretary.</font>
- discusses and approves a founding document; a statement of faith or church charter.</font>
- the group present signs the founding document.</font>
- with due deleberate speed convens a recognition council of representatives from sister churchs of like faith and practice.</font>
The last point is not mandatory. If there is nobody around for 200 miles, you just get on with business. In our case, we convened a council representing six area churchs. Further, what a churh is convening is a
recognition council not an
approval council.
Notice if you please, having an ordained minister of the Gospel present at the founding is not mentioned in the list. That was a deleberate omission on my part. Most of the time a church is founded through the efforts of a church planter ordained. But this is not mandatory. In fact once a Baptist church is organized, she can ordain whoever she wants to for her pastor. Or she can extend a call to a man outside the congregation.
Hope this helps and sheds more light than heat.
[ April 19, 2004, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: Squire Robertsson ]
