From Consumers to Partners: in praise of church membership

After three years pastoring at Southlands Brea, I was asked to take the helm of the team that led this intrepid and depleted church in 2010. We’d navigated an economic recession, fought a lawsuit over the sale of our church building, and led through the purchase, remodeling and move to our new premises in a new county. It was the perfect storm.  To add to the doldrums, the church had planted 12 times in 14 years prior to this. We were the little church that would. We were willing and eager, but closer to breaking point than we were willing to admit. 

I’ve written extensively about how we pushed pause on planting for three years in the hopes of winning home games, not just away games. This was a key move in our long term health and sustainability. It occurred to me yesterday though, after our 15th annual members meeting, that I’ve never written about our decision around that time to institute formal church membership. 

I know, this is a controversial topic. Images of pastors campaigning for popularity, contentious voting and power plays by deacon boards, most likely make you want to scroll on rapidly. But before you do, let me say that our church membership doesn't practice congregational voting, although we do make decisions collaboratively.  We are elder governed rather than congregationally governed. When I talk about church membership, I am really talking about people who have committed to becoming partners in the gospel.  And to be honest, when I look back at 15 years of church membership practice, I think it has saved our church from consumerism,  passivity and perhaps even implosion. Besides prayer,  I would venture to say that church membership is the single most important practice that makes our church vital and viable. It has moved the crowd towards community, expanded the core towards the fringe, and shifted consumers to becoming invested partners. 

So, what are the Biblical reasons for it? 

1. Accountability After Pentecost there were 3000 people saved and added to the church. (Acts 2:41) Added.  The new believers voted with their feet. They said, "You can count me in and you can count on me!" Those that were added were devoted to their church community. (Acts 2:42) That's what members do. They make themselves available and accountable. 

2. Health The apostle Paul's teaching on the Church as the Body of Christ describes a heathy body as one whose members are both connected and active. (1 Corinthians 12: 1-8) While baptism makes us members of the universal Body of Christ, we see in the Bible that individual believers walked that out in local churches under local pastors. A healthy body member, according to Paul then, is both connected and active. 

3. Safety When the apostle Paul's tells the Corinthians to put the immoral brother among them out of the church until such time as he repents, he is implying that he was a part of them. You cannot put someone out unless they were first in. This is not a vindictive act. It is an act of love and protection towards the flock. We have had two do this on a few occasions with abusive people, vindictive people and heretic people, who are doing harm to God's people. It is never a pleasant task. But it is necessary for the safety of the flock. (1 Cor 5:11-13)

4. Sanity If, as the apostle Peter writes, shepherds are to give an account to Jesus, the Chief Shepherd,  for how they cared for the flock, surely they need to know who is in their flock? I can love and feed anyone, but I can only shepherd those who have placed themselves under my care. It is those for whom I will give an account. So, membership is for the safety of the flock and the sanity of the shepherds. (1 Peter 5:1-3)

 How practically do we implement it?

1. Stick 6 (Courtesy of Vintage Church) We encourage visitors to stick around for 6 weeks before they decide to join us or not. During that time they will have 3 opportunities to meet pastors and hear about the church and make a decision: a newcomers lunch, a potential membership class and a one-on-one membership interview with an elder. 

2. 3 practices We call all our members to commit to 3 practices involving their time, talents and treasure. ( not original , I know, but memorable) we ask them to commit to a community group, to tithing, and  to serving in a volunteer team once a month.  We welcome new members in publicly every two months. 

3. Celebration We have an annual membership celebration where we tell stories of God's grace and growth, have a quality meal, give detailed feedback about finances, and talk through new decisions, new leaders, or new vision. We receive feedback from members. Members are first to hear and first to give feedback.

4. Non mandatory We have just under 400 members at Southlands Brea (there are more in our other Southlands churches) and this is about half of our average Sunday adult attendance. (which means, I'd guess,  about 1/3 of everyone who calls Southlands home) So we serve many who are not members. we do not force people to become members. Many of these people do serve and give. But we are working towards it becoming a majority culture.

Finally, membership has been a a culture we've had to contend for, because in Southern California, the largest church groups do not practice it. (Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Friends, independent mega churches) People are fearful that it will be weaponized to control them, or suspicious that we will be legalistic. Basically, there is a fundamental fear around commitment in our casual Christian culture.  But membership has been worth contending for, because it runs so counter to this culture, moving consumers towards being more committed gospel partners. If you lead a church I would commend it to you as a vital discipleship practice for a more vital church and mission.

Lead with Zeal: recovering an undervalued leadership virtue

 Many years ago I decided I wanted to be more of a thermostat than a thermometer leader. I wanted to set the tone and temperature of the room I was in rather than test it. I haven't done that perfectly, but if I've  done it all well, it's been because this often under-valued virtue we find in the Bible called zeal.   

If I ask you to think of a zealot, who comes to mind?  Perhaps you think of someone with misguided or unbridled passion for a cause. Maybe a placard waving protester or a hell, fire and brimstone preacher shouting at passers' by from a sidewalk?  Perhaps even a worship leader who gets carried away, losing all track of the time and the congregation?  

If we know the Scriptures, we probably think of the warning against zeal from the book of Proverbs. 

         "Zeal is not good without wisdom, and the one who acts hastily sins." (19:2)

The Bible provides living examples of this in Simon Peter, whose misguided zeal led him to cut off Malchus's ear at Jesus' arrest. Another example would be  Saul who described himself as zealously obeying the law and persecuting Christians. Not to mention Simon the Zealot, who was trying to overthrow the Roman government before he began to follow Christ. I think it is because we have read about and experienced unwise zeal that we tend to view zeal as a whole with suspicion. And so we choose wisdom over zeal and knowledge over passion. But what if wisdom without zeal was also not good? What if zeal was, in fact, a Biblical imperative for Christian leaders? 

Many years ago, a leader called Ray Johnston gave me some unforgettable insight on leadership. "There are two kinds of leaders that help God's people move upwards. I understand them in terms of rocket launching. There are those with a guidance system  - that's wisdom -  and those with rocket fuel - that's zeal. The best leader's have both guidance system and rocket fuel. They are rare."  

Is it possible that your guidance system needs some rocket fuel? 

 It's fascinating to me that the once zealous Saul doesn't reject zeal after his conversion. Instead, as an  apostle, he commends it, even more, insists on it for leaders of Jesus' Church.  

"Let the one who contributes, contribute generously; the one who leads, lead with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness." (Romans 12:8)

In other words, of all the virtues Paul could have chosen to describe how Christian leaders should lead, he  chose zeal. That is notable. You and I need zeal to lead! And then, in case we were not yet persuaded, he writes a few verses later, now speaking to all who serve in the church, "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor as you serve the Lord." (Romans 12:11) So then, zeal is an imperative for all servants of Christ, but particularly for leaders. We also note that zeal is something we can lose as we serve the Lord, but are able to keep. "Keep your spiritual fervor as you serve the Lord."

So, if leading with zeal is an imperative for all leaders, what is it and how do we keep it? 

First, zeal is not merely passion for a cause. I would describe Biblical zeal as spiritual fervor for God, his people and his priorities. God is a zealous God and he wants his people to be zealous for Him and his purposes. Isaiah's prophecy about the Messiah, so often read at Christmas time, gives us a glimpse of God's zeal in sending His Son to save and rule the world. 

"For unto us a child is born, and he shall be called the Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, the wonderful counsellor and the everlasting Father. He shall reign on David's throne, and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. The zeal of the Lord will accomplish this." (Isaiah 9:11-13)

God was enthusiastic about sending His Son. Fervent about saving us. Earnest about bringing about his eternal rule through Jesus. There is absolutely nothing half-hearted about God. He accomplishes his purposes with zeal. Too often, especially in the educated West, because we equate zeal with a lack of education or wisdom, we cultivate a kind of curated disinterest, as if being too passionate isa sign of  immaturity.  But this is far from God's character. Think of Zephaniah the prophet's description of God's zeal for his people. 

"The Lord your God is with you, he will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his live and rejoice over you with shouts of joy!" (Zephaniah 3:16)

So, how do we ensure that we never lack zeal but keep our spiritual fervor as we serve the Lord? 

First, let's beware of zeal comparison. That is a sure way either to depress us or make us proud. Elijah the prophet, after defeating the prophets of Baal, complained, "I have been very zealous for the Lord. I am the only one faithful in all of Israel." (1 Kings 19) God graciously corrected him. You are not the only zealous one, Elijah. There are 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah was likely looking for certain signs of zeal, but zeal looks different in different people. It's not always calling down fire and slaying false prophets. So let's beware of zeal comparison, especially those of us who are more intense or extroverted. 

Second, let's imitate the zeal of Jesus as our model. In the account of the Jesus cleansing of the temple in John 2, his actions reminded his disciples of  this verse in the Psalms, "Zeal for your house consumes me." (Psalm 69:9) Jesus' zeal was certainly radical. He turned the tables of the money changers. But before turning the tables, he spent the night at Mary and Martha's house, making a whip. His zeal was not an uncontrolled temper tantrum, but rather a deliberate plan for purity.  Jesus' zeal was about God's priority for purity in his house.

Jesus was also zealous for hospitality. His insistence that his father's house would be called a house of prayer for all nations, meant that any mechanism which kept the Gentiles from worshipingYahweh had to be radically death with. We should also be zealous for this kind of hospitality too. Then we see Jesus zealous for healing. He didn't only turn tables. He healed the lame and the sick in the temple.  We should also be zealous for healing. Finally, we see Jesus being zealous for freedom. He would not let people stop the children running through the temple to worship him, shouting 'Hosanna. Blessed is the King!" 

Following in the footsteps in Jesus, leaders are also called to be zealous for purity, hospitality, healing and freedom. Our zeal tends to flow easily towards some of these pursuits, but few off us are fervent about them all. Let's ask for Jesus' zeal for His father's house. Let's not play wisdom off against zeal. Refuse to be too cool to be zealous.Too studious to be zealous. Too mature to be zealous. If you want to lead in God's house, you're going to need  zeal. Let's ask Jesus for God's zeal to consume us again, just as it consumed Him.  

 

Living in the tension between self-care and self-denial

                                                    Camino de Santiago north of Porto, Portugal  

I see a spiritual director called Bill once a month, who has a been a profound gift to me for the past 7 years.  Some time ago Bill said to me. “You need to give yourself more to self-care.” 

I found myself having a visceral response towards that advice.

 “Bill," I responded,  "I think I understand what you are saying but I cannot tell you how many times I have had people say something like, 'My therapist says I cannot love others unless I first love myself and so I am going to prioritize self-care for now.' This usually means they stop serving, stop connecting regularly with Christian community and begin becoming very self-absorbed, even self-indulgent. How does this counsel line up with Jesus call to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me? ” (Matthew 16:24)

Bill responded, “I can see how immature people can abuse that kind of counsel.  But you are not that kind of person. You are highly responsible. And I still believe you need to consider giving yourself to more self-care for the sake of serving others. If you don’t care for yourself there will be nothing left of yourself to deny.” 

This began a time of reflection for me on what self care did and didn’t mean. It seems to me to be an important truth in-tension for those who follow Christ. I found a helpful piece from British theologian John Stott on what self-care does not mean. 

'Loving yourself' is not Jesus' 3rd Great Commandment:  John Stott

 "Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this self-esteem, self-love movement under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbor as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbor. But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced.

First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say, ‘the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbor, and the third to love yourself.’ He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of ‘as yourself’ supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbor-love, because ‘no one ever hated his own body’ (Eph 5:29 ). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’ (Mt 7:12 ). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commanded.

Second, and linguistically, the verb is agapao, and agape love means self-sacrifice in service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is nonsense.

Third, and theologically, self-love is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin is being curved in on oneself (as Luther puts it). One of the marks of ‘the last days’ is that people will be ‘lovers of self’ instead of ‘lovers of God’ (2 Tim 3:1-5 ). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbor to self. Let’s put this silliness to bed.

But then, how are we to regard ourselves? How are we to avoid the extremes of self-hatred and self-love? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation.”

Whatever we are by creation we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our sexuality (whether masculinity or femininity), our family life, our gifts of aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and experience of community, our awareness of the transcendent majesty of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him. All this (and more) is part of our created humanness. True, it has been tainted and twisted by sin. Yet Christ came to redeem it, not to destroy it. So, we must gratefully and positively affirm it."

Stott goes on…

"Whatever we are by the Fall, however, we must deny or repudiate: our irrationality, our moral perversity, our blurring of sexual distinctives and lack of sexual self-control, the selfishness that spoils our family life, our fascination with the ugly, our lazy refusal to develop God’s gifts, our polluting and spoiling of the environment, the antisocial tendencies that inhibit true community, our proud autonomy, and our idolatrous refusal to worship the living and true God. All this (and more) is part of our fallen humanness. Christ came not to redeem this but to destroy it. So we must strenuously deny it."

So, we are to avoid the extremes of self-hatred and self-love by managing the tension between self-denial and self-affirmation. That’s a good start.

Affirming Self-Care

But, practically, how does self-affirmation flow into self-care? How do we take care of ourselves without becoming self-indulgent, without getting curved in on ourselves?

It seems that this tension is held beautifully in the life of Jesus. 

In Mark 6 :30 after the brutal death of His cousin John, Jesus said two his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for a while.” 

Jesus’ self-care consisted of retreat, solitude, rest, eating, recreation, beauty and friendship. V 31 It was in response to grief, tragedy, busyness and depletion. "Many people were coming and going and they did not even have time to eat." Self-care recognizes signs of physical, emotional and relational depletion early, and makes plans to replenish them. 

What fills your tank? What do you look forward to? If the answer is nothing, you are in danger of redlining on reserve. Sabbath is God's gift of self care and his common grace is available to us all to replenish our bodies and souls. 

Signs of poor self-care are boasting about busyness, emotional numbness, mental foggyness, masking of pain with media/sugar/alcohol/tobacco/spending, procrastinating about our health,  the desire to stay in bed longer than usual, a refusal to rest on our day off, an inability to say no, irritability, when ministry becomes merely a job, reluctance to exercise, neglecting grooming, lack of romance or emotional connection with our spouse, daydreaming about vacation, a lack of joy! 

Do you have a wise, mature, sacrificial disciple of Jesus who can call you out on this without leading you into self-indulgence? Who is your friend, who sees it as their role to care for you rather than unload on you? God wants us to have a happy, holy, healthy self to give away! We take care of ourselves for the sake of serving others. 

In Praise of Self-Denial

What about self-denial? In some ways it is noble to say, “Yes, you’re right. I work too hard. I am bad at self-care. But to admit that I am bad at self-denial  stabs at the core of what it is to be a Christ-follower. “If anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” 

Mark 6:34 tells us, that when Jesus went to ashore for his retreat, "He saw a large crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples approached him and said, “This place is deserted, and it is already late. Send them away so they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages to buy themselves something to eat.” “You give themselves something to eat,” he responded. How many loaves do you have. Go and see.”

Jesus exhibited a powerful ability to deny himself, motivated by compassion for people. He allowed his retreat with his disciples to be interrupted because he was concerned that the crowds were like ‘sheep without a shepherd.’ He cared for people spiritually and physically, not out of abundance but out of his lack. He pressed into His father for miraculous power to nourish spiritually and physically hungry people and God met him profoundly. 

 Verse 45 tells us that he did not forget his retreat. Immediately after the miracle,  He dismissed the crowd and told his disciples to get into the boat.  But he was willing for his routines to be interrupted and and margins to be invaded for the sake of people. He had a rhythm more than a routine.

How do we know if we are poor at self-denial? We have an inflexible routine that cannot be interrupted by people, we have an inflexible threshold of service that cannot be stretched by unique demand, we are motivated more by duty than compassion, we only give to people out of abundance not out of lack. We resent people arriving at our house unannounced. We are extremely boundaried about serving beyond our defined ministry responsibility. 

So, let's ask for the Spirit's power and wisdom to live in this healthy tension. We need help  to willingly deny ourselves for the sake of others, for that is the last thing our flesh wants to do.  But let's not forget to care for ourselves for the sake of serving others. Because if we don't there will be nothing left of ourselves to deny.