Church Membership 5: Responsibilities of membership: One Anothering
Introduction: One of the big questions that divide people on their view of the church is this one: is the church an organisation or an organism? Those who answer organisation point to its defined leadership structure, its rules for worship and discipline and it doctrinal statements. Those who answer organism point to the church as a network of relationships and a community, a family driven by love not law. Spontaneity versus programs and relationships versus rules, these divisions spring from this dichotomy. The trouble is that this is a false dichotomy, the church is both organisation and organism. Today...
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Church Membership 4: Responsibilities of membership: Loving one another
Introduction: Picture with me Jesus last evening with His disciples before His arrest: If you could have tasted the air there would have been a strong variety of flavours in the upper room. Different emotions written on the faces of the various disciples. Some would have been slightly euphoric still high from the shouting of the crowds, heralding Christ as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Judas would have been under the cloud of his guilt and shame, anxious for what he was about to do. Others like Peter, who would have been a type of self-appointed body...
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Church Membership 3: Responsibilities of Membership: Meeting Together
Introduction: ‘I don’t like to go to church because I don’t get anything out of it.’ This statement could be a reflection on the poverty of the pulpit in the present church, but it also reveals a consumer mindset by which the church is judged and found to be deficient, amateur, antiquated and thereby useless. Consumerism has infected everything we do, and those churches that have buckled to the market mindset and accommodated unbelievers in what they think church should be have not done us any favours but affirmed this mindset. We subconsciously go into all relationships now with...
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Church Membership 2: Regenerate Church Membership
Introduction: What are the most important distinctives that make a Baptist Church a Baptist Church? You might think that believer’s baptism would be the first thing offered. This is not true! Baptists believe in the direct unmediated Lordship of Jesus Christ through His word in the local church. We do not need Popes or Presbyteries to know His will for our church. Baptists believe in the priesthood of all believers recognising that the Spirit has gifted every Christian for service in the church, and an ability to know God’s will through the word and Spirit and be responsible for...
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Church Membership 1: Why every Christian should be a member of a local Church
Introduction: Christianity has been displaced as the dominant religion of the West. Fewer people are becoming Christians, and the churches are emptying and closing down. A common reaction to this trend is one of overreaction where the Church is being pronounced outdated and an irrelevant organization. It is being claimed that Church as we know it is antiquated and we need to change or die. We are being told that what has been happening for the last 2000 years is now suddenly ineffective and we need a radical overhaul. Spirituality is in but church is out, community is in...
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