Dummies: Membership for Dummies

By Pastor Christian on 8/9/09

We are continuing our summer series – “Canyon Creek Church for Dummies.” Over two-months, we are taking the major “what” and “why” questions of church and boiling them down into entertaining and informative 35-minute messages. Taken together these messages will form THE definitive guide to Canyon Creek Church. Individually, each message will be great resources for the life of Canyon Creek. If you miss any part of the series or just want to send one to a friend, visit our sermon archive page and click on Canyon Creek for Dummies.
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This Sunday Brandon asked the question,” Why membership?” And, he admitted right up front that it was perhaps not the most enthralling topic upon first blush. I agree with him, it does not sound exciting up front. But, I only agree that it does “sound interesting” because of what belonging to a church, and probably church at all has become to mean in our culture. Note that nothing Brandon said from that point out was boring in the least.

I think Brandon did a great job of tackling the reasons people avoid membership AND providing the corollary New Testament pattern/principles for membership in a local community of faith. You should have taken away that if you don’t commit (read, commit enough to be a member of a church), you find yourselves at odds with several pressing pieces of Scripture.

But I wonder if the question doesn’t actually reveal a more disappointing, underlying assumption – i.e. we don’t really think the church is up to something vital, dangerous, or ultimately commitment worthy. Granted, we think the church is great. We think the work is important and valuable. Certainly we think people getting saved is awesome. But at the end of the day, at most churches, the whole thing lacks that sense of VITAL< LIFE SAVING MISSION. I don’t know how to “make it” come back, I am simply observing its unfortunate absence.  Perhaps we have forgotten that we have been called to forsake all else for this cause? Perhaps we are so ensconced in our comfortable lives that we have made church rather pedestrian and thus only semi-commitment worthy? Maybe our lives are inherently disobedient at some core cultural level? Yikes, personally uncomfortable.

Let’s try this.

What if we were on an actual “guns and bullets” military mission together, with a real enemy trying to kill us, a real commander, and a real mission greater than our individual lives? What kind of commitment would that require? What kind of commitment would we like from our fellow soldiers and commanders? What about our platoon? What about the one person guarding our back in a firefight? Would we want them committed to us and the mission?

I just can’t spell it out – it’s too obvious. . .

Ephesians 6:10-18 (among a hundred other passages) reminds us that we are on a real mission, with a real commander, with real enemy, and with life and death on the line.
I can’t “make” anyone see that. I don’t know how to modify the church. Honestly, I think what we ARE doing is good. BUT, I BELIEVE IN OUR MISSION. I believe it with every fiber of my being. I think about it when I lie down and when I get up. What we are doing here is worth giving-up our lives for.

So why Membership?! Because this is not a game friends. We are not filling up our time up with religious activity until Jesus returns. We are an outpost. We are on a mission. We need MEMBERS.

Peace,

Christian

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