scottlehr.com » Church planting

Membership Matters

slehr — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:37:11 +0000

In many regards church membership for all practical purposes seems meaningless to many people. Why should I become a member, when I can have all of the “benefits” without membership? Is that really true? What does the Bible actually say about membership?

Church membership is not like membership to a local country club where, “when you pay, you get to stay” and enjoy the benefits. Church membership for believers is about being devoted to one another (Romans 12:10, Acts 2:42). Church membership is a submission to spiritual authority. Church membership is a form of spiritual accountability to a group of believers and to a watching world. Church membership is God’s plan for believers in this time. So what does the Bible actually teach about church membership? The following is a helpful resource from the website: 9 Marks Building a Healthy Church.

Where do we see church membership in the New Testament?

Matthew 18:15-17: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault…if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you…If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” The ability to exclude someone from “the church” presupposes that it’s known who belongs to “the church” as a member in the first place.
Acts 5:12-13: “Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.” So, people faced the decision of whether or not they would join the church in Jerusalem. This joining is more public and definite than an informal association.
In 1 Timothy 5:9-12, Paul gives Timothy instructions for enrolling widows on the list of those receiving support from the church. He writes, “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works…” While this isn’t conclusive evidence for formal church membership, it’s tough to imagine that the church in Ephesus would have kept a list of widows but not have any formal means of identifying everyone who belonged to the church.
1 Corinthians 5:12-13: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” Paul called upon the Corinthian church to judge those who were inside the church, not those who were outside. They were responsible for the testimony of those who belonged to the church, not those who didn’t. This passage makes no sense if the Corinthian church didn’t have some public, formal means by which people identified themselves with the church.
2 Corinthians 2:6: Paul writes concerning a man the Corinthian church had excommunicated, “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” This man’s exclusion from the church was a punishment by the majority. You can’t have a majority unless you have a definite set of people from which a majority is constituted.

According to Scripture, why should every Christian join a church?

Every Christian should join a church because Scripture requires it. Granted, there is no direct command in Scripture that says, “Every Christian must join a local church,” but two factors in Scripture indicate that every Christian should be a member of a local church.

Jesus established the church to be a public, earthly institution that would mark out, affirm, and oversee those who profess to believe in him (Matt. 16:18-19, 18:15-20). Jesus established the church to publicly declare those who belong to him in order to give the world a display of the good news about himself (John 17:21, 23; see also Eph. 3:10). Jesus wants the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn’t. And how is the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn’t? They are to see which people publicly identify themselves with his people in the visible, public institution he established for this very purpose. They’re to look at the members of his church. And if some people claim to be part of the universal church even though they belong to no local church, they reject Jesus’ plan for them and his church. Jesus intends for his people to be marked out as a visible, public group, which means joining together in local churches.
Scripture repeatedly commands Christians to submit to their leaders (Heb. 13:17; 1 Thess. 5:12-13). The only way to do that is by publicly committing to be members of their flock, and saying in effect, “I commit to listening to your teaching, following your direction, and to submitting to your leadership.” There’s no way to obey the scriptural commands to submit to your leaders if you never actually submit to them by joining a local church.

What are some other reasons to join a church?

In addition to the New Testament’s teaching that every Christian should submit to a local church and its leaders (see Matt. 18:15-20, Heb. 13:17), there are many other good reasons to join a church:

Assure yourself. Membership is the church’s way of affirming the validity of someone’s profession of faith (Matt. 16:19, 18:18). The church looks at a person’s life, hears their explanation of the gospel and how they came to believe it, and says, “You look like a Christian to us. So join us. Watch over our lives and we’ll watch over yours.” So, while membership in a church doesn’t guarantee that someone is a Christian, it should assure believers of the genuineness of their faith.
Evangelize the world. We can preach the gospel to our community and the world much better together than we can apart. Not only that, but as we covenant with other Christians to love, encourage and admonish one another, we display a living, breathing image of the gospel to the world.
Expose false gospels. As the members of a church support and submit to its teaching, they collectively say, “This is the truth! World, pay attention!” and their unity in doing so works to expose corruptions and imitations of the true gospel.
Edify the church. When we join a local church we let the pastors and other members of that church know that we intend to attend regularly, give faithfully, pray for the church, and serve the church as we have opportunity. We allow fellow believers to have greater expectations of us in these areas, and we hold them responsible in these ways as well. So join a church in order to build it up (Eph. 4:11-16). You can do far more to build up the church as a committed member than as a detached, autonomous attender. And it will do good to your own soul as well.
Glorify God. Jesus told his disciples, “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35, NIV). We testify to the world about what God is like by how we love one another—and a committed, persevering, accountable love is a far greater picture of God’s love than a picky-and-choosy, I’ll-only-be-involved-with-the-people-I-want kind of “love.” By committing to one another as members of the same church we display the glory of God’s love—a committed, persevering, transforming love—as we image it in our lives together, and so bring him glory.

HT 9 Marks.org

Leadership

slehr — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:57:49 +0000

I had a great morning today. Although I was unable to be at Southbridge, I heard things went well people making decisions for Jesus and Jesus was exalted. I was at Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock Arkansas, the church that sent us out to plant Southbridge. Today, we celebrated their ten year anniversary of planting churches through their residency program at Fellowship Associates. In ten years they have planted over forty churches, from LA to Dubai. Praise the Lord.

One of the big reminders for me was a definition of leadership that was shared. Leadership is taking the initiative for the benefit of others. What a biblical definition of leadership. Jesus Christ took the initiative for our benefit (Phil 2:5-11), and that is the call on those of us who lead, to take the initiative for the benefit of others.

Freedom and the Church

slehr — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:13:03 +0000

I am on vacation with my family sitting out on the deck listening to the ocean. It is awesome. Shanna said it was ok to blog so everyone who likes to give me a hard time about working too much this is a relaxing blog.

Last weekend was the Fourth of July weekend when as American we celebrate our freedom as a country. I am incredibly thankful to live in America and enjoy the freedoms we have. We had a talk with our girls on our way here as we passed camp Lejeune on Sunday about the men and women who fight for our freedom as a country.

As I thought through our freedoms I was reflecting not on our country but on the Church. I am incredibly grateful for the freedom there is in the Church. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ so we have a freedom from sin (that is huge). There is also a freedom to passionately pursue a Christ centered, God given vision for each local church.

I was told by one seminary professor that I should consider planting a church because in an existing church it takes about 5 years before you can begin to lead. I don’t think planting solves that problem because every church has people come along who want to distract you from a God given vision (even Peter tried to distract Jesus from going to the cross and had to be rebuked). I praise God for giving us a vision to reach a city for His glory.

Regardless if you have planted, are thinking about planting, or lead in an existing church we all minister in a given context and should think through the best strategy to reach the people in that given context, but we must keep in mind the incredible freedoms we have in leading the church. Our guides are the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Too often I think we can feel guided by people and really our desire to please people. I am in no way condoning intentionally offending people or creating controversy for the sake of controversy, but spirit led leaders in the church have an incredible freedom to pursue God given visions. For that I am thankful!

Muffins and God’s glory

slehr — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:36:52 +0000

This is a note that I was given by one of the members of Southbridge. It was a blessing so I thought I would share it.

On Sunday while I was standing with Anne, I was surprised to see a very familiar face pop up in my vision. One of my coworkers from work (like that wasn’t obvious) had decided to visit Southbridge with his family. So after giving him a popcorn box, and chatting with him, he left. Well today he walked into my cubicle toting a muffin in a baggie. He dropped the muffin on my desk and asked me what I knew about it. I was confused to say the least but began describing the physical attributes of his muffin to him. He stopped me and then told me that He was blessed to find two muffins and an information booklet on Southbridge at his house this week. He was so very excited about his muffin, but even more so he also said in all the Churches they have visited so far they have never felt so welcomed and wanted. So thank you so much. I know it blessed him and his family but his story definitely blessed my heart as well.

My heart just swells and bursts with knowing how much you guys are allowing God to move and breathe through you. It’s been amazing to watch and be a part of in the last year…People are being affected by the Glory of Christ through Southbridge, which is such an incredible thought. So basically I wanted you all to know that you are very loved and appreciated and prayed for.

Jesse, please keep praying for lives to be changed by Jesus Christ and for God to continue to use Southbridge and the people of Southbridge (like you)to do it.

Someone robbed the church

slehr — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:36:53 +0000

This weekend was one of those weekends I don’t think we will forget anytime soon. We have had some special weekends at Southbridge. I think of the week we did cardboard testimonies, the week people left without their shoes, weeks where multiple people made decisions for Christ, and now this weekend. What happened this weekend? The church got robbed. No this is not a blog about people failing to tithe. We literally got robbed. Here is my version of the story:

It was Saturday night, I had just finished the final touches on Sunday mornings message. At about 8:30pm, I called our worship leader for that Sunday morning. We talked through the service and we were about to pray together, when I saw someone beeping in. It was Jon Cullen, our Family Pastor. I ignored the call. Then he called my cell. Then he called the home line again. I knew something serious was going on if he called that many times. I also knew his wife was out of town, so perhaps he had burned his house down, that or he was hanging out with John Piper after the conference he attended this weekend. Either way I called him back without knowing why he had called.

When Jon answered, I said, “Jon this is Scott.” To which he replied, “Hold on, I am talking to the police.” POLICE! What is going on? Where are you at? I could not ask those questions because he stopped talking to me. Then after what seemed like a long time he said, “Scott, let me call you back.” I said, “Wait. What is going on?” He said, “I am standing out here by our trailer (we are a portable church), and someone broke in. It looks like they cleaned it out.”

Sure enough someone had broken into the trailer where we keep most of our audio visual equipment for Sunday mornings. At this point it was almost 9:00pm on Saturday night. What happened then was truly amazing. People from Southbridge jumped on this situation and went to work so the hundreds of people who would come to Southbridge this morning would have an unhindered worship experience. Did we have the television in the lobby, cameras for the video venue, or all of the technical bells and whistles we have grown accustom to? No. But the troops were united and at work. The worship team prepared a new worship set (that was pretty much all acoustic in case the tech team could not get anything worked out). However, the tech team (whose leaders worked past midnight), went to one of our elders (Allin Foulkrod’s) office to assemble a temporary sound system and get a projector to show the words (from one of the guys laptops). If you were there in the second service we missed a slide on one song (I think because his battery was dying. Sorry, but one slide was not bad after all that had happened). People work hard every week at Southbridge, setting up, tearing down, etc. However, this week they were working extra hard and I am super thankful for all of them.

I reminded everyone this morning of a verse from Genesis: Genesis 50:20 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

What man intended for bad, God intended for good. God united people so that the gospel could still go forth. We were reminded about what we really NEED (the technical aids are nice, but it was nice today taking a few steps back technically). We desire to connect people to Jesus for life change. Today we were reminded that all we need to be able to do that is:

1. Jesus.

2. People.

One of the ironic things about today was that I was already planning on speaking about generosity from 1 Timothy 6:17-19. The challenge was to hold all of our material stuff with open hands. God has a funny way of making sure we apply the truths He desires for us to learn.