What I have offered is this: The hardest thing a Christian will do is to live well within his church. Part of this “living well” means being a member among other members. But don’t think of member-ing mainly in terms of member-roles! Here I’m asking you to hear “member” as Paul first metaphorically described the church: individuals functioning together as members that comprise a body. You know - eyes, ears and noses working together. Paul says: that’s what church is like.
Member-ing is Humbling
I am a member among others, and that’s hard. I’m (at least in this sense) not defined in a vacuum but in my relation to other persons. So, Who am I? quickly must be transformed to, Where is my place?
And that line of reasoning kiboshes the other question: how important am I? A fruitless subject. I’m not sure, even as a pastor, how valuable I am: that’s what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 12: 21ff. God gives “greater honor to the part that lacked it…”
Which brings us to another humbling truth: our member-ing and our placement in the total body, is a divine placement. Again in 1 Corinthians 12: “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” “God has so composed the body…” “God has appointed in the church…”
Member-ing is Unwieldy
The Colin is not the total body (as neither the colon), but one among other members. Read this heading from the USA Today, Opinion, February 2008:
A gated community in the evangelical world: Many of the nation’s most powerful believers - presidents, CEOs, entertainers and athletes - won’t be found in the pews on Sundays, thus creating a gap between them and ‘the people.’
The article attempts to explain this phenomenon:
Why are these leaders so disconnected from their local churches? Executives and politicians are often distressed by the way churches are run. James Unruh, who served as the chief executive of Unisys, was also at one time an elder at his Presbyterian church in CA. He has since decided he will never serve again. He couldn’t stand the inefficiency of church meetings, a common refrain among those I interviewed….
David Grizzle, a senior executive with Continental Airlines, told me, “I’ve intentionally pulled back involvement at my local church and focused more on activities of a broader scope…I get to the same place, but through a different pathway.”
You get the drift: members are starting to drift out of the body and go about their Christianity more efficiently. This modification is probably well-intended, but is nevertheless a mistake. “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you…”
We love to streamline things, to sector off the injured, to cancel that which isn’t immediately reaping dividends, but the fact it that we cannot legitimately escape the influence of other church members, even the halting and burdensome: “If one member suffers, all suffer together.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to be part of a group where all people were winsome and intelligent, where we could expect to expose our kids only to the most savory and challenging people, where you always walk out the door with a glad heart?
Sorry!
Member-ing is Demanding
But if the difficulty of member-ing lies in being one of many, we must also remember that member-ing is hard also because it implies PRODUCTIVITY. Members, as Paul conceives them, don’t sit on lists, they contribute. Again, this is a simple and obvious point if one remembers how Paul is first using the word.
“Truthing in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself in love.” - Ephesians 4
The perspiration streams off the words.
Where lies the work? Generally speaking, it lies in caring for one another. Let that member-ing generality hit you in the sternum: “God has so composed the body…that the members may have the same care for one another.” (1 Corinthians 12: 25)
But don’t let us leave the ideal as an ideal. Member-ing demands specific things from us:
- Growing up in doctrinal accuracy. Or even better, caring to grow in doctrinal accuracy (see Jude). This is loving one another. We who member are committing ourselves as individuals to (on our own, for the greater good) “striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”
- Knowing each other’s situations (without forcing people to abandon appropriate reserve and privacy). You know this doesn’t just happen.
- Helping meet physical needs: intelligently, carefully, discreetly
- Thinking over one another; praying in detail for one another; calling for and helping to develop love and good deeds in each other
You have a duty toward these people, as you submit to Christ. As you work toward them you show yourself Christ’s slave.
Member-ing is Christianity
Again I want to quote from Thabiti Anyabwile, as he discusses his book on Church Membership:
Based on Ephesians 4:11-5:2 and comparable passages, I would ask the readers to consider how essential God intends the local church to be in their lives. I would ask that they see how intertwined their spiritual health is with the life and witness of their local fellowship. The very purpose for which Christ gives gifted people to the body is to prepare them for works of service (4:12). Their spiritual maturity is not a matter of completing consecutive months and years of “quiet times”-though personal devotion is critical-but of being an active member of the body of Christ exercising your gifts so that others are built up even as they are built up by receiving the blessings stemming from the gifts of others (4:13, 15-16). We learn to put on Christ in the church (4:20-25). And as we are kind and forgiving of others in our churches, we increasingly become imitators of God, living a life of love which pleases God (4:32-5:2). All that we need to grow up into Christ and to see others grow in Him, God provides in and through the Body of His Son. I would want to ask if we have deeply understood this stunning reality and if that is reflected in our involvement in a local body of Christ. (My italics)
Let me say it baldly: The quality of one’s Christianity cannot be divorced from the quality of his member-ing in a local church. Instead of talking about how much you love Jesus, why not just invest yourself in His body? Let faithfulness to your Master be one with reliability within His body.
Dear, dear people: Do not let the Protestant Baptist “individual soul liberty” allow you to slip into a Christianity that is all about solo spiritual rhapsodizing or reading C.S. Lewis in front of the fire or having a close-knit family.
All these are recommended, but in themselves cannot reflect the great task that God is doing on the earth: Calling out persons from every tribe, tongue, and nation as they receive the gospel of Christ and building them up together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Revelation, Ephesians)
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