Justin Taylor has posted a summary of how some leading pastors and theologians answered that question. Click here.
If you only read one of the answers, I would recommend Dever’s.
Remember the Church (composed of local churches) is as much God’s plan for this age as the Ark was for Noah’s.
Mark Dever responds that the most crying need of the Church today is:
For pastors to know and understand what a local church should and can be and for pastors to teach this to their congregations. Much of the blessings and benefits of good teaching in evangelical churches in America goes into the hearts of individuals and then perhaps into the lives of their family and friend but is then largely lost in the sands of American individualism. If the preaching of the gospel and expositional preaching are the glorious founts of life, the local church is to be the bowl, the container, in which that life is caught and held up for display to a thirsty world. That pastors should know and understand and teach this is the most crying need in evangelical churches in America today.
