In observing their promotional efforts, it is sometimes interesting to note the images various churches seek to project. Church A, for example, is a "caring church" where love is extended, while Church B is strongly committed to scriptural integrity. Church C, on the other hand, wishes it known that theirs is a place of God's presence and power, etc. One is not always sure as to what extent "truth in advertising" may apply, or whether such tends rather to represent that which the pastor desires his charge to become. Anyway...
Our attention is frequently drawn the more out-of-the-ordinary claims sometimes advanced, as in the ad for one church that declared itself a "fun place," while another declared itself "a rational church" - whatever that may have been intended to convey.
One self-billing that particularly gains our attention, however, is that of a "New Testament Church." While not impugning the congregation's basic intention, one is nonetheless prone to sometimes wonder if such self identification has been thought completely through.
The Corinthian church, for example, was so engulfed in sectarian wrangling, moral scandal, court actions against one another, abuse of the Lord's Table, doctrinal controversy and misunderstanding of spiritual gifts that the apostle Paul wrote them "with many tears" (II Cor. 2:4). Such, one would logically assume, is not the desired objective. Again, the Galatian churches were so into legalism that the apostle expressed his fears of their having become a lost cause (Gal. 4:11). The Colossian church was into gnostically-oriented pursuits to the point of worshipping angels at the expense of Christ's primacy (Col. 2:18) - and who would desire a replication of the Pergamum (Pergamos, KJV) or Thyratira heresies as noted in the second chapter of the Revelation?
Thankfully, of course, there was the Philippian church whose only mentioned difficulty was that of two ladies in need of resolving a personal antagonism. (It might also be noted that Paul's Ephesian epistle was a general letter sent out to the churches - our having retained the copy sent to Ephesus. Hence its lack of reference to any particular problem of a local nature.)
The apostle Paul viewed the New Testament Church, not in terms of ultimate attainment, but rather initiation of that which God wills it to become - a state of being yet to be fully realized (note Eph. 4:11-13: "until we all come to...the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" etc.)
Given such, "let us press on to [not back to] maturity" (Heb. 6:1).
Burl Ratzsch