by Ds. Baltazar A. Niangar, Pastor Emeritus, Th.B., A.B., D.D.
“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” — Matthew 16:18
Why do some churches feel like museums, others like sects, and others like little more than a mirror of the culture around them? After a lifetime in pastoral ministry, I’ve come to a settled conviction: our struggles are not primarily about culture or resources. They are a crisis of identity. We have forgotten what we are.
A genuinely healthy church needs three things together, not as options on a menu but as one interlocking whole: she must be really Historic, really Reformed, and really Relevant.
Really Historic
The Church didn’t invent her faith — she received it. Paul tells the Thessalonians to “hold fast to the traditions” passed down to them (2 Thess. 2:15), and to the Corinthians he passes on “as of first importance” the gospel he himself received: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day (1 Cor. 15:1–5). A church without history is like a river without a source. She may flow for a while, but she carries nothing of depth. And that history is not for nostalgia’s sake — it exists to send us out, in every generation, on the same Great Commission Christ gave the apostles.
Really Reformed
The painful truth is that the Church can and does go wrong. Christ’s letters to the seven churches of Revelation are a mirror for every congregation since: “I know your works,” He says — to some in commendation, to others in devastating rebuke. Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda — the church reformed, always being reformed — was never a slogan for complacency. It’s a call to ongoing honesty, courage, and humility: to keep being salt and light in the world rather than either withdrawing from it or being swallowed up by it.
Really Relevant
Being relevant doesn’t mean chasing every cultural trend. It means being supracultural — genuinely present in every culture, fluent in its language, without being captive to its values (Rom. 12:2). That means taking philosophy, science, and the arts seriously, the way Paul engaged the Athenian philosophers at the Areopagus (Acts 17). It also means engaging politics and economics biblically — refusing to become a partisan mouthpiece for any party, while still speaking, as Scripture does constantly, for justice, dignity, and the poor.
One Vision, Not Three Agendas
These three qualities hold each other up. A historic church that isn’t reformed becomes a museum. A reformed church that isn’t relevant becomes a sect. A relevant church that isn’t rooted in history becomes a mirror of the age. Only a church that is genuinely all three can be the church Christ is building — the one the gates of Hades will not overcome.
In the end, this isn’t a call for institutional reform. It’s a call to personal faithfulness. The health of the church begins with the health of her people.
Soli Deo gloria.
READ THE FULL STUDY
What the Christian Church Should Be
A Scriptural and Pastoral Study of the Christian’s Relationship to Material Possesions
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