I really respected how you approached the subject of "church membership."
Here is an area of ministry that can be misunderstood at times. I do not
claim to be an expert in this area but a deeper look into what makes it
effective is really needed in the Body of Christ. d Membership and the
congregation coming together for worship, prayer, and other meetings is
important. d Being a Christian is not the walk of a lone-ranger but a
community of converted people working together for a common cause and
that is to be spiritually strong, and fulfill the great commission. d We must
not forsake coming together as a team to prepare for strategic advancement
of the Kingdom of God. I also like how you discussed church leadership. d
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Leaders are vision casters and
motivators, shepherds, and learners. I say with conviction that a Church
Leader should be passionate about the things of God and know their
individual purposes as well as staff purposes. Leaders need to be well-
training in the Word of God and able to teach in a practice manner. d There
is so much more to being a leader than just holding a title. We as lay
leaders must also be teachable, approachable, prayerful, and prophetic at
times.
Your church is similar to many others. I have found that a more faithful
presentation of the gospel in evangelism, calling for both repentance from
sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, results in more genuine conversions.
Too many churches water down the gospel or the response to the gospel
and call people just to believe in Jesus and they don't take the issues of
repentance or Lordship salvation seriously.
Biblical evangelism can then be used to deal with church membership--if
someone is truly saved, they will want to serve the Lord (and His church)
out of gratitude. Of course, there are many more expectations for
membership, but that's a start.
Finally, the matter of church leadership can help equip the saints so biblical
evangelism is done (and church membership is valued).
You are right in that the church needs to be doing more with regard to
volunteering. I see the same people every church function doing the same thing.
There are no new faces in the cooking or the serving. When it comes to land
work that needs to be done, tilling, or restoration and such, in a way I can see
why the same people do that, not everybody owns a tractor and it is hard to get
it done by somebody else. Jesus did not save us to be doing nothing in our
spare time. All have been called to do something because we all have a gift that
needs to be used for the building of the Kingdom, people are without excuse. My
suggestion is to implement a rotation to where everybody who has an excuse, no
longer has one. I hear all the time, well I was not called to ministry, I do not
have the time, or I am not interested. When we got saved, that got us
interested. The Holy Spirit will certainly woo somebody to do more than fill a pew
on Sunday morning for two hours. If old people can find something to do, these
younger folks can to. We are not called to be a member of a church, once we
got saved, we became a member of a body, 1 Cor. 12:12-27 the body of Christ.
Once we became a member of him, Christ has something for us to do because
we are connected to him, he is all about the Father's business. He wants us
using our spiritual gift. He does not want it to go dormant, he knows we will be
accountable for what we did with it and he is not going to let it go to waste
just to tell his Father, "They were not interested, so I never pressed the issue." d
d
Mark Dever. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Edition). Vol. Third Edition.
9Marks. Wheaton: Crossway, 2013.
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