The reader is asked to imagine the following scenario: A man and his wife who live in Minnesota are visiting a couple in Tennessee. The two men are old army buddies from the days of serving together in Vietnam. The Minnesota couple has never been to Tennessee, and their hosts are anxious to show them the natural beauty of the state. On a series of several day trips they see the mountains and valleys and fields and streams of The Volunteer State. On their rounds they pass by many church buildings of various sizes and architecture and bearing different names — Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Nazarene, Assembly of God, etc. One day they happen to drive by a building with a sign in front that says Westside Church of Christ. The Tennessee host says to his out-of-state visitors. “I work with a man who attends that church. He is a good, honest man, but he says the Church of Christ is not a denomination, and for the life of me I cannot understand why he says that.”

Why do members of the church of Christ say that they do not constitute a denomination? Are we deceived in this matter? Are we denying reality? Is it really possible to be undenominational Christians?

ANOTHER NOTE FROM JERRY: I found the above quite interesting, but I thought there was more that needed to be said about the question!

Well, I decided to send the following message to a friend on the net:

Smile...there are times!!! when I wish I could write, but between you 'n I...writin' and respondin' to someone "like" the writer of the following article...I haven't found one(?) yet (that I can recall) that appeared to truly appreciate being questioned regarding their "view"...=D

JERRY: Within a few hours, I received the following! Wow! I hope you enjoy it! I did!! Plenty to ponder, I think!

My friend wrote:

Hmmm. Do you need a response to this or did someone post it as a comment? I hope you put my 'answer' on following the post if it is on the website... this is a really difficulty issue and it almost comes down to an individual basis... you'll see what I mean. God requires a strong people toserve him. Wimps don't make the grade and unfortunately most people are wishy washy and lazy and find it easier to just join a church than to stand alone for God..... this is kinda long.

The meat of the whole story is in the last few sentences… The rest is just window dressing….

First and foremost to answer the question: It is not only possible but absolutely necessary to be a nondenominational Christian!

The real issue is the validity of whether or not there can be a truly ‘non-denominational’ or ‘undenominational’ church.

First we must look at the Biblical roots of any church congregation or group of congregations combined under one name. When we pull one reference from the Bible and use it to name a system of worship we are on denominational ground. When we insist on the name defining the group beyond other Biblical references we are on denominational ground.

Then we come to the matter of membership. When we insist on having a specified list of members we are on denominational ground. When individuals must petition or be invited to join the membership we are on denominational ground. When a list is kept of ‘sister congregations’ we are on denominational grounds.

The key to being ‘denominational’ involves the organization of the group more than doctrine. Denomination is defined as: large group of religious congregations united under a common faith and name and organized under a single administrative and legal hierarchy. When I first read this definition I focused only on the first part-a group united under a common faith and name. If we stop here, then it is true we cannot be truly ‘non-denominational.’ By this definition any number of groups of people believing the same doctrines, even though they are Biblical, would be considered a denomination.

However the definition doesn’t stop there. The end of the definition reads “organized under a single administrative and legal hierarchy.” Here is where we separate denominationalism from non denominationalism. We can only be truly ‘undenominational’ if we can keep ourselves from the human compulsion to bring everything under human control. In the flesh we want to have some quick earmark to recognize ‘members of our church.” We want to control who preaches and where. We want to be able to say which young men are approved to preach (and in some cases prohibit women) and we want to know they are preaching the ‘right’ things. And of course the Big Component is Money: who gets paid what, where do new congregations get established, who pays for their establishment, which missionaries do we support, who do we allow to call themselves missionaries of ‘our church.’ Then also printed ‘teaching’ materials enter into the question. Where do we get them? Who prints them? How can we know they are the ‘right’ doctrinal teachings?

For some reason men just cannot keep their hands out of God’s business. We feel compelled to enact organization. As soon as we begin enacting ‘organization’ we are moving into the realm of ‘denominationalism.” This is where the Anderson movement went astray and became merely a church among churches, as I’ve heard it called. Good men for very good reasons began to organize what God had established. Look at the fantastic job He has done of keeping his church throughout the ages! Through the pitfalls and tangled webs of paganism, Catholicism, Protestantism and all the things that could have destroyed the very Word we hold in our hands, He has kept it a steady shining thread running throughout history. (Well, glory! Doesn’t that bless you! He didn’t need a single man to take care of it or organize it or plan it!) But as He brought the Church through history at each step of divine revelation some group of well meaning men have felt compelled to step in and establish an organization that became a ‘denomination’ because they gathered it under a specific administration and a legal hierarchy. As soon as that happened to the message of D.S. Warner, the Anderson movement church of God ceased to be the Church of God and became a denomination.

I read through brother Fulford’s articles and they are excellent in most cases- especially Article # 019 about the church. That is absolutely beautiful. But it would appear he is gathering his articles under the wrong name. He is supporting a denomination which has lifted one reference to elevate and designate itself from all others. And in that they do indeed make themselves a denomination. This doesn’t stop with the Anderson movement or the Church of Christ. It goes on across the spectrum the Baptists, the Methodists the Lutherens and so on.

As God’s People we are individually responsible to worship Him in spirit and in truth and to keep ourselves separate from any group who would ‘impose order’ or ‘organize’ or ‘arrange’ or ‘develop’ or ‘administer’ our worship and fellowship.

It is WORK to ‘try the spirits whether they be of God.”

It is WORK to stand fast in one spirit, with one mind strive together for the faith of the gospel. It is WORK to see and know of your own selves.

It is WORK to stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

It is WORK to stand fast in the Lord, and to stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.

Being human, in the flesh, it is much easier to just organize a group that generally supports the same things we support and then we can become lax in our bible study and our time with the Lord. We can relax and rest on our laurels because we are in the church of Christ. (or the Church of God).

When we belong to a group we don’t have to be so diligent because, of course, everyone else in the group is a good saint. Mmm-hummm. When we have organized a group we can know that everybody accepted into the gorup is a good saint. We meet a new man or woman and they are introduced as brother or sister so-n-so from our church congregation in Wooster, or Denver, or Philadelphia and we automatically accept them at face value as an excellent example of a saint of God. There is no need to pause during that hushed moment and wait for the spirit of God to bear witness with our spirit, that we [both] are the children of God; and then something within us begins to say “wait, this person’s spirit isn’t acknowledging Christ as Lord, it isn’t demonstrating the spirit of God. He isn’t showing forth the fruit of the Spirit in his life. There’s no fellowship of the Spirit between us.” When that still small voice begins to speak to us, because we met him as a brother from such-n-such church, we drown the voice out, we overlook it, we quench the spirit. And a hypocrite at worst, a sinner at best, becomes one of the respected ‘members’ of the church. And all because we were to lazy to put in the WORK in the word and with the Lord to discern the spirit of the man.

There's the pitfall of denominationalism!

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Praise the Lord, brother Jerry, He set me free. There was a time when I didn’t see the glory of the Church as clearly as I do today. I more or less felt you could ‘belong’ to a group of worshippers and still be free in the spirit. But it just isn’t so. As soon as you allow your name to go on a list and subscribe to a certain administration and hierarchy of ministry you are bound. Maybe not by legal constrictions so much as by emotional or spiritual ones; you become more likely to just accept things because the ministry says it’s okay, or just because it is easier to do it their way than it is to follow God and swim upsteam.

There have been times when I smothered the still small voice that was saying, ”This man is not what he is professing to be.” Why? The man came under the guise of accepted member of the group. The compulsion to be lazy was there. Everyone said he was a good saint and I didn’t listen to the small voice of the spirit telling me different. I learned some hard lessons. A couple of them came with bitter grief.

Praise the Lord, No matter how arduous it is I’ll do it God’s way.

I won’t be bound. Not by sin and not by man!

JERRY: Well, there you have it!! Thanks!!!