Her Faith Thrives

Should church be at the core of a faith that thrives?  To be honest, I have answered both yes and no at different points in my life. How about you?  Our choices are rarely clear to us until they are challenged. For many of us, Biblical and meaningful membership of a local church can be affected by matters of convenience like having too much to do, baby nap schedules, or not getting enough sleep. Sometimes our involvement in the local church can be affected by our beliefs about its importance or how it affects our relationships or our reputation in our circles. All these reasons and more have been a factor in my own patterns of involvement in the local church.

 Over the last few years, we have all had the chance to consider what Biblical and meaningful membership of a church should look like.  The most universal impetus for thought was the pandemic related changes that temporarily changed how we gathered and worshiped. Afterward, we all had the chance to evaluate whether we would go back to doing what we had done before and even whether we would go back to church at all.

Jonathan Leeman in his short but powerful book Church Membership, gives a Biblical picture of what a local church should look like. In his book he defines two terms that I believe will be useful to consider. 

Church Membership:  “ a formal relationship between a church and a Christian  characterized by the church’s affirmation and oversight of a Christian’s discipleship and the Christian’s submission to living out his or her discipleship in the care of the church.”  

The Local Church: “a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and His kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances.” 

With these two definitions in mind,  I believe the main practices of Biblical and meaningful church membership include:

• Attending church services regularly to sit under the preaching of God’s word and participate in the gospel ordinances ( Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
• Spending time with God’s people and getting to know them well enough that you can be meaningfully involved in each other’s lives. 
• Affirming and responding to the God given authority of your local church’s group of godly elders.

After believing in Jesus for salvation, having the local church at the core of our faith practice means we  grow in our knowledge of God within the context of a Biblical local church. So, in addition to means of grace such as Bible reading and prayer, we also make it a priority to incorporate the three practices outlined above as part of meaningful church membership. The question then becomes, why should anyone seek to practice their Christian faith in this way?

In the book of Acts, God worked through the disciples and apostles to give witness to who He is. As the disciples told people about Jesus they started to organize the people who believed in Jesus in groups that would later be called local churches. Throughout the book of Acts, it is amazing to see how God used Peter, Paul and others to organize churches under elders and perform the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 

For us, Christians in the 21st century, inundated with myriad ways of doing ministry, it seems like there should have been some other strategic plan to achieve kingdom growth. Yet, God in His wisdom chose the church as the primary way to grow His kingdom and that choice is still central today.  The early local churches which were formed in the book of  Acts, were edified, encouraged and exhorted  with the letters contained in the rest of the New Testament after the book of Acts.  These Christians were expected to grow in the context of their local churches and the same applies to us. If God chose this method, who are we to treat it lightly?  I have been guilty of putting more emphasis on other ways of doing ministry and worse still dismissing the local church as the primary means God is using to grow His kingdom. To be clear, other ministries have their place but at the very least they should facilitate a Christian’s growth in the context of healthy, Biblical local churches. So, what about gathering in local churches is so powerful and necessary?

Regularly Listening to God’s Word Preached

In our modern age where multiple helpful ways exist for disseminating information, it can be easy to dismiss God’s ways as irrelevant, forgetting that God will remain even as new methods come and go. The fact that the church is God’s idea not ours, should give us pause ( Ephesians 3:1-10). God thinks highly of preaching. He has chosen to use the preached word as the primary means for proclaiming the Gospel ( 1 Corinthians 1:21-25). Additionally, it is essential for our growth to hear God’s word preached faithfully. I have found that over time, being exposed to good preaching has enriched my personal reading of God’s word by helping me understand my bible better. Regularly hearing various scriptures explained, kindles curiosity and a love for God’s word that helps me stay consistent in reading and studying it during the week.

Building Meaningful Relationships with God’s People

Community is one of the main attractions of the church.  Thus, building enjoyable friendships can easily become the main goal for meaningful involvement in our local churches. Whereas I hope we  always have enjoyable  friendships at church, this is not the primary reason God calls us to enter relationships with other Christians. We are called to meaningful relationships with other Christians to encourage one another to walk with God so that we are not hardened by sin’s deceitfulness ( Hebrews 3:12-13). The Bible encourages us to serve one another. We are further  encouraged to learn to love well and grow in every aspect of  our faith because the truths of the Bible need to be worked out in relationships and these relationships are not always easy (1 John 4:19-21). In the local church we commit to doing these things for Christ’s sake more than ours. As we bear one another’s burdens we all grow to reflect the love of Christ and Christ fills our cups in ways that point to Him above all else.

Intentionally Submitting to the Authority of Godly Pastors/Elders

If we like a church that has a good pastor, most of the time we like how they preach and interact. However, pastors are called to do more than preach, they are also called to shepherd. Part of this task is joyfully affirming saving faith in the members of their churches through Baptism and continually administering the Lord’s Supper. They are also actively involved in counseling members on how to live Biblically through sticky life issues. Shepherding, however,  also includes the more thorny task of calling us to repentance when we sin. In a general sense this happens regularly as pastors preach the Word and the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to convict us of sin. However, it happens in a specific sense as members are encouraged to call out sin in each other’s lives and even more so in the case of church discipline,  when pastors lead the church through dealing with specific sins that  individual members are not repentant of. If this sounds prickly and challenging to you, you are not alone. So why invest in this? Primarily because this is how God designed Christian communities to function and in committing to this, we again affirm that we take God’s design seriously. By creating and working through an authority structure in the church, Christ builds us up to become more like Him.  God uses godly pastors to protect us from falsehood and from being entangled in sin so that we can glorify Him (Hebrews 13:17). 

Participating in a Community that Exists to Point to Christ

In the book of Acts, those who believed in Christ lived in such a distinct way they were called Christians (Acts 11:25-26).  When we go above and beyond to stay committed to a local church, investing in the needs of people and letting them invest in our needs we live counter-culturally. Loving people who we may not have otherwise had a reason to be in relationship with, relating with joy, honor and love with the elders who exercise God given authority over us is not natural and therefore is a powerful witness. This witness is not always one that is attractive but definitely shows that God calls people to live for Him, which looks different from living for ourselves (John 13:34-35). I have been amazed at how simply committing to meaningful membership in a Biblical local church has actually led to conversations about Christ in our community.

So, should the church be at the core of faith that thrives? I would answer a resounding yes! This article is hardly exhaustive, but I hope it provides a helpful starting point as you consider your own involvement with the local church. At this time many of my greatest challenges to meaningful membership have been logistics, effort and intentionality driven. I have also had to unlearn bad habits and wrong ways of thinking about the church and its centrality in building God’s kingdom. My guess is if you have access to this article, your challenges may be similar. Friends, I am regularly encouraged that if these are our biggest issues, then we have a lot to be thankful for. Many people have given up their lives for identifying with Christ and His church. Let us then rise up and joyfully participate in the privilege of gathering in local churches. Let us pray for grace to overcome our challenges and show up. Let us pray that God uses our mustard seed efforts of faithfulness to the local church to glorify Himself and reap a harvest of followers for His Kingdom.

Reflection Questions

Prayerfully consider your next step toward meaningful involvement in a local church:

• Are there any wrong ways of thinking that you need to repent of?
• Do you need to take a closer look at the church you have been attending to make sure it conforms to a Biblical standard?
• Is there a specific action you need to take to be more meaningfully involved?
  • Going to church more regularly?
  • Exploring the process of becoming a member at your church?
  • Finding a way to get to know the people at your church ( small groups, play dates, hospitality etc)?

For Further Encouragement

Were you encouraged by this blog post? I would love to connect with you on our special Her Faith Thrives Newsletter which goes out every other month.  In each newsletter, I share a short reflection about how I’m growing in my faith during this season of life. Plus, I’ll be sending you some fantastic resources to inspire and guide you on your own faith journey. When you subscribe, you will receive my all-time favorite tool for making your Daily Quiet Time truly meaningful. It’s called “From Routine to Reverence: 3 Simple Steps to a Deeper Daily Quiet Time.” I can’t wait to hear how it helps you deepen your time in God’s Word.