Innovation and Faithfulness: Spurgeon on the Church
Many of his contemporaries viewed Spurgeon as something of an innovator. When his building ran out of space, Spurgeon led his church to hold regular worship services at Exeter Hall. When the Hall ran out of space, they took the controversial step of holding their services in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, a secular venue that seated 10,000, which had never been done before. Rather than relying on the Baptist colleges, he founded his own pastoral training college based out of his church, a first of its kind. By 1861, the church had constructed the Metropolitan Tabernacle, a state-of-the-art building that seated over 5,000. With a growing congregation, new evangelistic and benevolent initiatives arose from the Tabernacle.
Defining the Church
But for all these innovations, Spurgeon never compromised his understanding of the church. Why? Because he understood that only Scripture defines what a church is.
“The “Church of Christ” according to the Scripture, is an assembly of faithful men… in its full sense, is a company of persons called out by the Holy Spirit from among the rest of mankind, banded together for the holy purpose of the defense and the propagation of the truth.”1
Rather than seeing the church as an event, a building, or a clerical structure (as was common among the Anglicans), Spurgeon believed the church was fundamentally an assembly. It was a congregation of believers committed to the proclamation of the truth. This meant that even as he organized these different venues, he understood his primary ministry was not to the visitors who attended but to the congregation that had called him.
The Marks of a Church
But does any assembly of Christians constitute a church? What distinguishes a church from a Christian conference, a small group, or a Bible class? Spurgeon clarifies:
“Any company of Christian men, gathered together in holy bonds of communion for the purpose of receiving God’s ordinances, and preaching what they regard to be God’s truths, is a church; and the whole of these churches gathered into one, in fact all the true believers in Christ scattered throughout the world, constitute the One true Universal Apostolic Church, built upon a rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.”2
Along with the Protestant Reformers, Spurgeon affirmed that there were two marks of a true church: the right preaching of the gospel and the right administration of the ordinances. The first mark, “preaching what they regard to be God’s truths,” establishes the gospel as the foundation of the church. Spurgeon held that a congregation that has compromised the gospel, no matter how beautiful her building or historic her congregation, is no longer a true church. He expresses this point as preaching “God’s truths.” That doesn’t mean there are multiple truths, but rather that Scripture teaches many different doctrines related to the one truth of the gospel. His church had adopted the Baptist Confession of Faith in 1689, and though it had fallen out of use, Spurgeon reincorporated it into the life of the church. He gave new members a copy, small groups and baptismal candidates studied it, and when they built the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon placed a copy of it under the foundation stone! Of course, the Baptist Confession was not authoritative on its own, but it expressed what they believed to be the Bible’s teaching, and so they were willing to build on it and proclaim it.
The other mark of a true church is that this assembly of Christians be “gathered together in holy bonds of communion for the purpose of receiving God’s ordinances.”
This was no temporary gathering of Christians, as for a conference or an event. Rather, these Christians gathered together “in holy bonds of communion,” being committed to one another and sharing in Christ together. The expression of that communion is the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is that initiating ordinance where the church examines the person’s profession of faith and receives them into their communion. And the Lord’s Supper is the continuing ordinance where the assembly expresses their communion in Christ around His Table. These ordinances, far from being individualized, gave rich expression of the church’s commitment to live out the Christian life with one another.
Conclusion
Even as the congregation occupied new venues and took on new endeavors, one of the main things that kept Spurgeon grounded was a foundational understanding of what a church is. He never lost sight of the fact that they were a church, and he was their pastor. Therefore, his goal was not to put on an event or maintain a program. No, his job was to shepherd a people. To lead them in the preaching of the gospel. To administer the sacraments meaningfully. So, amid what appeared to be all kinds of innovations, Spurgeon carried on with what Christian pastors had been doing for centuries. He preached the gospel faithfully week after week.
Along with the elders, he sought to get to know all incoming members through a membership interview process. They labored to keep track of their people and provide pastoral care. They practiced baptism and kept the Lord’s Supper. And together, they “banded together for the holy purpose of the defense and the propagation of the truth.” In all this, their goal was not to be innovative but faithful.
As I’ve heard one pastor joke, “Ministry would be easy if not for the people.”
It can be easy for pastors to lose sight of the inherently people-oriented nature of ministry!
Too many pastors deal primarily with sermons, budgets, and programs and lose sight of the people God calls them to serve. If a church is fundamentally God’s people, then pastors must live up to their title and be shepherds of the flock.
And in their passion to see the gospel go out, many well-meaning leaders seek to take advantage of the latest innovations in their churches. With the rise of video streaming, virtual reality, social media, and many other technologies, churches can disseminate their resources all over the world. Much of that is good! But we must ask, do these efforts change our understanding of what the church is? In our embrace of innovation, are we still faithful to a biblical understanding of the church?
Is the church fundamentally an assembly? Or is it a leadership structure that unifies many assemblies and congregations?
Does the church require a face-to-face assembly of people and a physical celebration of the ordinances? Or can it “gather” virtually across time and space over the internet?
Should the church continue preaching all its historic doctrines? Or can we downplay or even adjust certain doctrines to make Christianity more palatable for a modern audience?
Are pastors still spiritually responsible for a distinct flock? Or is their job simply to put on an event for whoever comes?
These are questions that all church leaders must wrestle with, not pragmatically but biblically. Opportunities and innovations will come and go. But in our passion to see the gospel go out, how tragic would it be if we unintentionally worked against the very structure that God gave us to protect and proclaim the gospel, namely the church, the pillar and ground of truth (1 Tim. 3:15)?
©2023 Geoff Chang. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
About The Author

Geoffrey Chang
Geoffrey Chang is assistant professor of historical theology and curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. He is the editor and author of Spurgeon the Pastor.