A Healthy Church Member

Psalm 84

Psalm 84 says this, how lovely
is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes,
it faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing
for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home
in the swallow, a nest for herself where she may lay her young at
your altars, O Lord of hosts. my King and my God. Blessed are
those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise. We’ll
end there with our reading. This is a psalm that we usually
read when the elders meet with a prospective member of family.
We usually read Psalm 84, Psalm 87. Psalm 84, a good way to picture
it, when you go in Lowe’s or Home Depot and the birds are
up in the rafters. That’s kind of the picture here.
The temple had a little room even for God’s creation. A little
reflection from the psalmist there. But we ought to love God’s
church. We ought to love God’s dwelling
place where he meets with his people. So that’s what we want
to do at the outset of our class here is consider a couple things
about church membership. Let me give you just a quick
overview of where we’re headed. The big picture goal of this
exercise, and I know we’ve got some folks thinking about membership,
we’ve got some old members, not by age, but you’ve been around
a while, so it’s good to refresh, but it’s also good to come in
eyes wide open. So one of the biggest jobs I have, in addition
to preaching and teaching, is to prepare people to make and
keep their vows. Probably never thought of that
before, unless you heard me say it before. But it’s my job to prepare
the people of God to make their vows and keep their vows. And
that goes with church membership, that goes with baptizing your
children, that goes with ordination to office, that goes with marriage
vows, whatever other vows we make before God. And so that’s
what we want to do throughout this time is make sure we know
we’re getting into what we’re getting into with eyes wide open,
or maybe for some of you who’ve been members a while, you’ll
begin to see the method to our madness. I’ll pass out at the
end of the class, from the ARP’s former government, the expectations
of a church member and then the seven vows, and just take those
home, look over them, We will cover them in the weeks to come,
but I’m not going to pass them out until later because you’ll
stare at them and read them the whole time and not pay attention
to the real thing we’re talking about today. But we’ll cover
things during this class like our view of the scripture, the
Bible’s view of sin, salvation, obedience, growth, heaven. We’ll cover some hot subjects
like maybe the particulars that we in the Associate Reform Presbyterian
Church hold as distinctives over and against other churches or
denominations. And then we’ll talk about the
ongoing ministry of the church and how you can be served by
the church as you grow in grace and make your way to heaven.
So that’s sort of the overview. All right, so membership. There’s a wonderful little book
that came out some years ago, What is a Healthy Church Member?
And in the back of this little booklet, in the appendix, it
has a wonderful statement that I wanna read to you. That’s why
I’m out of breath, because I ran down the hall to get this. This
is a sample of a typical covenant or membership understanding in
what they call a healthy church. So this is not ours, this is
not the ARP’s, but this is something I thought worth reading. And
it says this, having, as we trust, been brought by divine grace
to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to give
up ourselves to him, and having been baptized upon our profession
of faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, we do now, relying on his gracious aid, solemnly and
joyfully renew our covenant with each other. Catch that, with
each other. We will work and pray for the
unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. We will walk together
in brotherly love as becomes the members of a Christian church.
We will exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each
other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion
may require. We will not forsake the assembling
of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others.
We will endeavor to bring up such as may at any time be under
our care in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord and by
a pure and loving example to seek the salvation of our family
and friends. We will rejoice at each other’s
happiness and we will endeavor with tenderness and sympathy
to bear each other’s burdens and sorrows. We will seek by
divine aid to live carefully in the world, denying ungodliness
and worldly lust, and remembering that as we have been voluntarily
buried by baptism and raised again from the symbolic grave,
these are Baptist, so there is on us a special obligation now
to lead a new and holy life. We will work together for the
continuance of a faithful, evangelical ministry in this church as we
sustain its worship, as we sustain its ordinances, as we sustain
its discipline, and as we sustain its doctrines. We will contribute
cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, to the
expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of
the gospel through all nations. We will, when we move from this
place as soon as possible, unite with some other church where
we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles
of God’s word. May the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with us all. Amen. Tell me what you heard.
Unity. Unity. Community. Community. Okay. So the umbrella of all
these words we’re throwing out is what was said at the beginning. Having as we trust and brought
by divine grace to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can’t be part of a church unless that happens, right? And
you can’t have unity without that. What else did you hear? I think I heard it to be evangelical,
but I have some questions about that. OK. Yeah, that’s why I
said we’ll have some hot topic days. All right. What do we have
over here? Covenant. Covenant. OK. Relationship. All right. Tell me what you didn’t hear. Laziness. Laziness. Self-centeredness. Self-centeredness. Very good.
That’s what I was looking for. Sandra gets a free cup of coffee today.
And you can have cream in it. All right, what else did you
not hear? Oh, come on, y’all got a sense
of humor, I know. Did you hear anything about preferences? The
building shall be painted the color I wish. I’m touching a
nerve now, aren’t I, from some of the stuff we’ve dealt with.
I shall behave in the household of faith as I wish, and you’ll
say nothing about it. Come on, Robert, I know you got something
in you. Robert and I have been to the edge of hell and back
together. It’s not funny. It’s not funny either. Closer than we have around here,
actually. And we have seen the devil. And
his breath has touched us. We served together in Greensboro.
Okay, so you kinda get the idea. This is what is a healthy church
member, and this is, at the end, what they want a person who reads
this book to understand. So what is a healthy church member?
I’m gonna put it in my own words. A healthy church member is someone
who is happy, they’re holy, they’re helpful, they’re obedient, they’re
kind, and they’re ready to serve. and they’re present, there you
go. That’s a little statement we have in our house for our
children, and even for the parents, right? We want to be happy, holy,
helpful, obedient, kind, and ready to serve. And why not the
same in the household of faith? I’m not going to pass this out
to you, but y’all have heard the responsibilities of a church
member. I’m going to pass it out to you later. Church members
are required to make a diligent use of the means of grace, which
Cynthia just stated in another way. You should be here, right?
Share faithfully in the worship and service of the church. Give
of your substance as the Lord prospers. Render wholehearted
service to Christ and his kingdom throughout the world. Continue
in the peace and the fellowship of the people of God. Submit
to the authority of the elders and live so as to bear faithful
witness to the gospel. So what is a healthy church member?
It’s a lot. And we’ll explore some of the
who we ought to be, but also what we ought to do over the
weeks to come. Something else we ought to think about, how
do you say you plural in the South? Y’all. Okay, how many times in the New
Testament in particular do you think the you singular is there
over and against the you plural? We’ll defer to our Greek New
Testament scholar back here. 5% or what? So if 5% are singular, what does
that make the plurals? 95%. Okay, do the math. Is it about you? No. Now, is it about you? I mean,
yes, right? Christ loves you, but where does
he want you? He wants you with the you plurals. We’re living in a very self-centered,
individualistic world, and the stuff you hear today, I know
y’all hear this at the water cooler, Where do you go to church?
Well, I really don’t. Or where do you go to church?
Well, I just haven’t found one that suits me. If I was technologically prepared today, I would show
you this hilarious spoof video of a young couple testing out
churches. And they’re looking at things
like what kind of hair gel does the preacher use? What kind of
coffee is there? How cushy are the seats? Is the
Wi-Fi good enough to get my football scores because the preacher’s
going to go on? That kind of thing. It’s funny, right? But
it’s really not. That’s how people are thinking.
I’ll try to bring that in a few weeks. It’s worth a watch. But the point I want to make
here is the church is meant for us. It’s meant for y’all, right? The commands in the New Testament
are you plurals. That’s something to get. Can
you do the loved one and others? or all the one another’s if you’re
not with one another’s. You really can’t. So unless you
unite with a church, unless you gather with God’s people and
are part of the family of God, the household of faith, you really
can’t obey most of God’s New Testament commands. We’ve made
it so individualistic, personal devotions, personal quiet time,
me and Jesus, Jesus and me. But think for a moment about
the Old Testament beginnings of the church. God gathered a
people for himself. He always had an assembly of
people. And then you bump ahead to the
New Testament, the church, the word in Greek is ekklesia, and
for y’all language folks, what is ek when it’s added to a word
as a prefix? From out of. Okay, so the church
is, first of all, from out of, and then the lesia part, the
called out ones. So it’s a verb stem with called,
like come, and it’s from out of. And so what are Christians?
We are those called out of the world, called out of darkness,
called out of paganism, called out of selfish living, called
out of unrighteousness, called out of the kingdom of darkness.
And what are we called? out of, we’re called out of all
this to be put into the family of God. And so we gather as the
church. And so when we say, oh, I don’t
go to church or I am not involved in a church, it’s just me and
Jesus. You really have wiped out the church equation because
what is the church? It’s a plural. And it’s those
God has called out of this world. And so you’ve got to act like
a Christian, right? You’ve got to act like the church. You’ve
got to maybe ride by and see these signs, be the church. How
do you be the church? Cynthia gave us the answer earlier.
You come, right? You unite, you join, covenant
was the word we heard back that way. So the Christian life is
not meant to be done. alone. We’re supposed to be in
the family of God, the household of faith. Jesus is the door. He is the gate. This is a sheepfold
with a shepherd, right? He used Jesus’ imagery from the
Gospel of John. Who does Jesus give the Great
Commission to? He gives it to the church. So
who does the Great Commission? Oh, we always talk about personal
evangelism, right? Personal evangelism, good, but
it’s the Great Commission is not you go into the world and
you go into the world, it’s y’all go into the world. These are
plural commands. So we gotta start thinking in
y’all terms. All right, gonna switch subjects
here. This is an interesting one, I
think. Why would we be afraid of joining a church? Lots of
reasons. And I can tell you, I have experienced
some of these. How about legalism? Who wants
to join a church where you’re told what to do? And you’re told
what to do to merit your salvation. And if you don’t do what you’re
told to do, you’re ostracized, you’re put out, and you’re not
saved. Anybody? Anybody been through
that? Show of hands. Hold them high.
Hold them proud. We probably got a pretty good
high number. I’ve been through that. I’ve experienced that legalism.
Anybody been in a controlling church or an abusive church? Better not be here. If it is,
say something. Or how about a church with hypocrisy? That’s huge today. You’re watching
all these church scandals, these ministers that got huge followings,
but what do we find out about them? Same thing we’re finding
out about governors and… What’s that? Playboys. Yeah,
playboys. There you go. Scandal. Right. Hypocrisy. Some people don’t
join a church because of doctrine. Doctrine is too much. You know,
I don’t want to think that hard, or I can’t think that hard, or
maybe if I don’t know everything, I won’t fit in. Let me mention
something just to consider. There are lots of reasons not
to join the church because you don’t want to get hurt, right? We all can say we’ve experienced
something. Church ought to be the safest
place on the earth. probably next to a mother’s womb
and the home. It really ought to be. And very
often it is not. And so one of the things that
we as a session talk about all the time is how do we be a happy,
safe place? How do we do normal business,
maintain the fellowship, deal with sin and all those things
in a godly way? But how do we keep the church
from being a buzz saw? How do we keep the church from
being a people eating place? You can probably talk to people
who have been to this church in the past or to other churches
in the past. One of the reasons they don’t
go to the church is I’m not getting hurt again. And that’s an awful,
awful, awful shame. And so one of the things we have
to think about is God has formed his church in the days of old.
God formed his people. He called them out. He put them
into a place and gave them a practice. And what does our sin do? Our
sin takes what God forms and deforms it. We start doing what
we want. We start doing the things that
we think are good. We build golden calves. We build legalism into
our religious system. And on and on and on we go. The
book of Corinthians, the books of Corinthians, read the Old
Testament, read the prophetic books. When God’s people get
off the beaten path, they take what he has formed, they deform
it. And so it’s good to be in a reformed
church. And we can say that in two ways.
We’re reformed in the heritage of the Reformation, Martin Luther,
John Calvin, John Knox, all these others. But we also believe the
church ought to be reformed and always reforming. We ought to
always be reading the Bible and saying, what are we doing well?
What are we doing poorly? Where are we sinning? Where might
we need to repent? And so if you’re afraid to join
the church, I can’t tell you everything will be perfect here.
Can’t tell you you won’t get your feelings hurt. I can’t tell
you that it’ll all be rosy. But you come to us, I see Jim
and Bill, there’s four of us in the room who will die for
you if that’s what it takes. And if we can keep a happy, sweet
fellowship here, that’s what we want. We’ve lost all our hair
trying to straighten things out, clean things up. But we want
a happy, healthy church that is reformed in the Reformation
sense, but that continues to be reformed in the biblical sense.
Let me ask another question. And I’m going to open this up
at the end for questions, comments, complaints, accusations, whatever. Why no membership? Why are most people in today’s
American church not in church membership? Well, they’re wounded. There’s a high level of distrust.
They’ve been burned. They’re disgruntled. It could
be that they’re indifferent. It could be that they’re a la
carting it. You know what that is, right?
You go to the place where you pick what you want, K&W, and
you a la cart it. I want some fish. Then you go
over to this section, and you want some taters. Then you go
to this section, and you Vegetable medley and then you go to that
section and you get the dessert and and why do people like to go
to those places? Because everybody’s happy All
you can eat everybody’s happy you can pick what you want And
so I’ve seen notice this in my lifetime of ministry a lot of
people a la carte church. They like the preacher And so
they go this place for the preaching. Well, they got an epic youth
group over here with the climbing wall And so the kids go to this
one or some of the kids go to this one And maybe some of the
kids go to this youth group at this church because why? That’s
where their schoolmates are. And then a wife goes to a women’s
group at this church and husband goes to a men’s group at this
church. And where might their membership
be? Possibly nowhere, but probably at a church that they’re not
even using the a la carte method for. And what’s wrong with that
picture? Well, not a bit of it is what we read in this. There
is no covenant. It’s picking and choosing and
getting what I want. But there’s no commitment. But the other
problem is, who’s shepherding them? Nobody. Nobody is committed to their
souls. I have a, I don’t have it with
me in here today, but I have a sheet, the elders keep one
too. It has the role of the church, it has all our visitors, and
it has a list of all the children of the church who, or children
of loved ones in the church who we’ve been praying for that don’t
know the Lord. And that’s the names, like the high priest,
remember in the old covenant? Those are the names written on
our breastplate. And so we’re committed to pray
for our members. We’re committed to pray for the members’ families
that we know of needs. And we’re committed to pray for
even our frequent attenders that maybe one day will, Lord willing,
become members. But do we pray for the church
down the street? I mean, yes, in passing, but we’re committed
to the souls here. And so when you a la carte it,
you’re really only being self-centered, but you’re also being unshepherded. I mean, sure, you’re getting
a little food, right? But nobody feels responsible
for you. I think another reason people
are indecisive, they waffle. Sometimes people are not members
of a church because they’re ignorant of what church membership is.
Some people have an independent spirit. Some people are just
so consumeristic, they’re gonna bounce from one place to the
next, one place to the next. There are some people in the
patriarchal movement, we would say they have a home church. Only mom and dad can speak spiritually
into the family. And so while they might attend
worship, there will be absolutely no influence of the ministry
of the church, the pastor or elders into that home. That’s
a pretty destructive pattern in a lot of reform churches,
but the home church mentality. We’ll use the church for the
stuff that we really think we must have, but other than that,
keep your nose out of our house. And then people have personal
issues. hardships, it could be all kinds
of things. But I think today what we’re
seeing is not just a Christless Christianity, we’re seeing a
churchless Christianity. What do you hear people say very
often? I tried the church and I’m just not into institutionalized
religion. But what did God ordain? He ordered
an institutionalized religion. Did he want it screwed up, messed
up, deformed? Absolutely not. All right, so
I want us to think about one last subject, then we’ll open
it up for questions. We wanna think about the church
as a central part of our lives. One of the writers, we’ve got
a stack of books on church, but one of the writers I really enjoy
on the church is Kevin DeYoung, who pastors down in Charlotte.
And he wrote a Mad Lib, y’all remember Mad Libs?
You can fill in the blank with the words you want, and it creates
kind of a funny story. All right, so this is a mad lib
that Kevin DeYoung wrote about the church. The institutional
church is so, fill in the blank with a pejorative
adjective, if you know what one is. When I go to church, I feel
completely, fill in a negative emotion. The leadership is totally,
adjective you would use to describe Richard Nixon, And the people
are, use a noun that starts with the prefix un. The services are,
fill in an adjective that you might use to describe going to
the dentist. The music is, fill in with an adjective you would
use to describe the singing on Barney. That’s funny. And the whole congregation is
choose among passive, comatose, hypocritical, or Rush Limbaugh
Republicans. I’m looking at Jay over here.
The whole thing makes me fill in the blank with a medical term.
Oh, there’s more. I had no choice but to leave
the church. My relationship with fill in the blank with spiritual
noun, is better than ever. Now I meet regularly with my,
relational noun plural, and talk about, noun that could be the
focus of a liberal arts degree, and Jesus. We really care for
each other. Sometimes we even choose among
the words pray for each other, feed the homeless together, or
share power tools. This is the church like it was
meant to be. After all, insert where two or
three are gathered there in the midst of you, or the letter kills
but the spirit gives life, or another spiritual phrase, we
don’t have to go to church, we are the church. Y’all probably
heard some of this from workmates. I see a nod over here, that’s
good. Lost my place. OK, I’m not saying everyone needs
to do what I’ve done. But if you are tired of compound
phrase that begins with institutional or ends with as we know it. in
air quotes, I invite you to join, noun with political overtones,
and experience, spiritual noun, like you will never will by sitting
in, choose among the following architectural put downs, wooden
pew, steepled graveyard, stained glass mausoleum, or glorified
concert hall, week after week. When will, biblical noun, start
being the same, or start being the same biblical noun, So that’s
a theologian’s perspective on what he has seen and heard people
say about why they leave the church. The church ought to be
a central part of our lives. We ought to be committed to it,
not be a la carte. We ought to be members of the
church, part of the body, not apart from the body. What is it called when in days
of old a person lost their head? Decapitation. Yeah, one of the
interesting phrases that Kevin DeYoung uses is, we are becoming
a decorpulated church. What is the body? The corpus.
So we are debodying the church of God’s people. Who decided
what the church is? God. Who formed the church? God. Who died for the church?
God, his son, the Lord Jesus. Who gave gifts to the church?
The Lord Jesus when he ascended on high. Has the church lost
its… way? Of course it has. But what
can the church do? Can we just toss it? Throw out
the baby with the bathwater? We could, and that’s what a lot
of people are doing. Or we could say, let’s do the biblical church. Let’s make sure each Lord’s Day
is a market day of the soul where we’re filled full of the stores
of God’s goodness and grace, and we might grow together. So
let’s open up for questions, comments, complaints. pejorative adjectives, I think
was one of the terms in here. What questions do you have or
comments or thoughts? The idea that Christ incarnated
himself means that we follow him in fleshing
out our faith with other people. And the give and take of the
church over 50 years makes considerable difference in people’s lives.
I have two stones on my desk. One you and I picked up in Gettysburg
on the left flank where Chamberlain preserved the Union against the
rebel onslaught. And it’s very, very jagged. It’ll
touch your hand. And I have another rock that’s
very smooth that you picked up. It’s very beautiful. The other
one’s very ugly and jagged. And the church is where we tumble
together. There’s abrasiveness here, but
it’s where people hold me accountable for my temper or my bad habits,
and I grow. And with Ravi Zacharias, one
of the great teachers of our generation, he didn’t tumble
with his fellows. He set himself aloof from it,
and he is of the church with his sexual perversions. But the
church is a place of safety, even though it is inconvenient,
and sloppy, and sometimes abrasive. It’s worth it. It is. It is. The key word there to me is accountability. Accountability. That’s good.
Comment in the back there? One, just to tail off what you
were saying there, one thing Yes. Yes. vibrates through faith. And so
this all of a sudden becomes, yes it is that that just stand out to me, like
that’s inspiring to me, to know that there’s a lot of places
that say that we’re safe, but this is different, right? This
is where we do life together at the most essential level.
That’s right. That’s yeah. And essential is
a good word. Y’all, some of y’all remember
about three and a half years ago, we met in here at tables
and we passed out note cards and we asked, um, probably very
few of y’all were in here. We asked y’all to write down,
uh, key words about the church. And one of the key words is this
church is essential. It’s needed with, with, it’s
the, without which we could not live life. And that’s important. But I think the common ground
is a good thing to consider. We all have equal footing at
the cross. Maybe we have different gifts and graces. Maybe some
of us have been in, just say, a reformed church for longer.
But that ought to impel us to remember, like Paul says in Titus,
remember, you too once were foolish, led astray, until the goodness
and kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ came. And then what is
that next little phrase? And he saved you. We all have
a level place at the foot of the cross, but we also all have
an obligation to meet each other where we are, and not to exploit
one another, not to have mean girls cliques, or the boys over
here, or the homeschoolers, or the reformed ones, or the Calvinist,
or the whatever. We ought to just so enjoy one
another that we consider one another better than ourselves
and we serve. That’s important. What else? Set apart. Set apart. Yeah. What else? This is an observation
from a non-member. OK. All right. He’s visited many
different churches in Japan, just to look around and check
things out in different churches. And so it kind of ties in with
a book I’ve been reading by David Wells. And I don’t know if you’ve
read it, but you may have to read it. You have to be smart
to read David Wells. But anyway, it talks about those
churches that are creedal and doctrinal, which obviously this
church is, or that’s what’s come across to me. And second of all,
to the marketeers, to those who want to market those things that
attract people, that make their membership larger, not necessarily
all tied to doctrine and creeds, but to have people enjoy their
services and whatever they may be. So, and then the third area
is those who want to provide this spiritual experience, but
not necessarily link to Jesus Christ, but they have all of
these, a number of different churches that really don’t focus
on the gospel or what Jesus has done for us, but provide what
they call a spiritual experience. that is experiencing in my visits
some of this. And so it’s a matter of, you
know, finding where I want to be, which is more of a doctrinal
church, obviously, so it has creeds and foundations and beliefs
that you can share. So it’s interesting when you
look around, and from my perspective, you’ve probably been here all
for a while, but I have not. So I see different avenues And so having an evangelical
approach, each one has what they call an evangelical approach. So how is yours different from
these other two? Well, I don’t have cool hair. For one thing, we are creedal for one thing.
Yes, so I’m gonna come to you. We’re creedal. I wrote down what
you said. We are not marketeers. Except if you see any of our
propaganda, it’ll say we are a welcoming family of reformed
believers committed to the historic Christian faith and life. And
what does that sound like? Sounds like creedal, doesn’t
it? And then we are not hoping to provide you a spiritual experience
unless the Holy Spirit gives you one. But for the evangelical
term, I would use that in the sense of the way it’s going to
get used in the sermon. We preach the gospel. We don’t
preach a gospel, we preach the gospel. And our doctrine of life
within the church, we all have an equal footing at the cross.
We also all have the same gospel expectations that if you’re a
new creation in Christ, you’re gonna act like it, live like
it, serve like it, right? Does that make sense? But we
have nothing to market except what Jesus told us to do. And
the spiritual experience is only what God blesses you with at
church. We don’t have a yoga class, right? We don’t do your best life now.
We do your best life later. But that’s the way I would answer
it, just quickly off the cuff. Hopefully that helps. Now John
here’s got some experience out in the world. I mean, we’ve been in several different
situations, but one thing that’s you’re required to call it an
experience, and if you don’t, then you’re chastised. So, experience
is the best word for, I think, what you’re seeing in other places,
and it’s all about the experience. So, make sure you call it a worship
experience. Not a celebration? No, but, and
I’ve been struggling with this, like, what does evangelism even
mean at this point for me? Oh, there there it was there
for me. I just fell into place like this morning, honestly.
And the difference, I think the difference is in the churches
that you’re describing. And your question on evangelism
is that it’s not personal evangelism. And I just figured it out right
now. I mean, which is really you just had an experience. Yeah.
That’s the whole thing. you bring and whether people
want to admit it or not everyone in the modern evangelical church
keeps a tally of that and if you ask them they’re gonna say
no they don’t but from you know just talking to people in different
perspectives it’s like yeah everyone keeps that personal tally of
how many people can I bring And I always try to, I always
get into it with people, I’m like, it’s not about you, but
I never could articulate it. Well, it’s the fact that it’s
about a, it’s the church’s job, it’s not your job. And so I think
that’s the separation in church, even evangelism. We’re glad we could provide the
opportunity for your epiphany there. That’s good, those are
good distinctions. I just want to share two quick
observations. We were talking about the reasons people don’t
join a church. I think two, one is we’re just
like a commitment phobic society right now. It’s just our whole
society. The other one, also this might
be something you can touch on later, is in a lot of churches
it doesn’t make any difference. Like, you know, whether you’re,
you know, you can, it doesn’t make a difference. So it’s just,
there’s no reason to, make that commitment. When you go back
to what Marion pointed out, the creedal churches, the marketeering
churches, and then the spiritual experience, I think particularly
the middle one, the marketeering church, what happens if they
begin to pressure you for membership? Or for your tithe? Or for your
commitment to live a faithful Christian life under the oversight
of an elder? What happens in those a la carte
marketeering settings? What happens to your nickels
and noses? They go somewhere less heavy with commitments. And so
a lot of these churches, they’re like, hey, what do they say?
It’s like Outback, no rules. What’s their little saying at
Outback Steakhouse? No rules? Just right. Just right. Or how
about Burger King? Have it your way. Have it your
way. Or if some of you are any of
y’all Bon Quiqui fans from King Burger? Welcome to King Burger.
This is a spoof on Burger King. Welcome to King Burger, have
it your way, but don’t go too crazy. But that’s the marketeering.
And why do these churches look like a shopping mall? Because
they are. There’s something for everybody
because we can’t possibly imagine we would want a consumer to be
turned away from us. And so what you’ll begin to see
here is this is a whole different worldview. We come to church. What do we say sometimes? It’s
the Lord’s house, the Lord’s day, the Lord’s people, and the
Lord’s word. And there’s really not much else.
But what else do you need? Bells and whistles. You don’t need them. Yep. So
last call. We’re a few minutes over, but
any last? Yes, sir. Okay, so if you start
talking about commitment, then the person might leave. But in
an experiential church that usually has an abundance of people that
are in the building, they’re gonna act like It doesn’t matter
to them if you leave anyway, if that makes sense. And not
that it’s about my personal feeling. My feelings are hurt if you don’t
care if I leave. But it’s from that first paragraph that you
read about the community. I mean, if you’re genuinely in
a family if someone leaves that community.
And there’s the connotation that, well, if you do leave, that’s
whatever, because we don’t really care anyway. And we’ve got all
these people here anyway. Well, it’s a throwaway culture.
And we even throw away people. And that’s from the perspective
of the congregant and the church, back and forth. Yeah, if a minister
does not mourn over your leaving, or your unfaithfulness, you’re
in the wrong place, right? Or the elders. Now sometimes
there’s good riddance, right? Sometimes we need a Scottish
revival, right? Or a blessed subtraction, but
generally you want people to mourn over losses. But yeah,
those churches are really movements. And you fit in. Yeah, go ahead.
Some churches, if you don’t really Okay, so if a church doesn’t care,
why would they pressure you? Well, a lot of churches say something
and they mean something else, if
that makes sense. They may say, oh, come as you are, you know,
dress as you wish, believe what you want. We’re just into the
essentials here. It’s all about Jesus. But what are you beginning
to find out about a church like that every time? There’s something,
well, yeah, or there’s something they really care about and drill
in on. That’s false advertising, to
be honest. But I think at the end of the
day, those churches, they at least want your check. And then they want their allegiance
to the preacher, probably. What else would you say, having
been in those? I think that- They want your
money and allegiance. It is like a hypocrisy, and that’s
why your question, I feel like, is important, because it’s like
two things that are opposite to each other, right? Yes. they’re pressuring you to use
you in a certain way and not to use you so that you can get
some things like grow and grace or whatever. But if I know that
I have more people on my welcome team,
then I can use that to market for more people that can come
in. So I may not be pressuring you
because I really want I was a pastor. And so then when
you leave, I really don’t care about you personally, but it
might hurt me because I like the image of my church because
I want a big welcome team. Because when you come in and
there’s 30 people at five different stations trying to sell you something,
it looks good to the modern church right now. to make my church look cooler
or bigger. And I think maybe that’s what
it’s about. I don’t know if that makes any
sense. You know, I think the proper
approach too is, all right, so we got, there are four
of us in the room that are the shepherds of the church. Our
desire is to have Christians here who want to love Christ,
worship him, serve him, and grow in grace. And we want to help
you every way we can. There are some who have gifts
and graces and time, and they can serve the church. There are
others who are at a point in life where it’s all they can
do just to get here. And we want to serve people where
they are. We want to help them get to heaven. We want to help
them get conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus. And some people
may not join the church. And so our goal would be to help
them find a church that they could join that would suit their
needs. That’s really the bottom line. Yeah. The two churches
I attended were all really big churches. Right. And I never understood the reason
to become a member because I just felt like there’s no difference. I always felt like I was just
going grocery shopping every week on Sunday. And I went in
and I listened to the sermon. or so it’s people there just
look like they were all shopping as well and we don’t know each
other and there’s no connection there’s I don’t know the pastor
and pastor doesn’t know me and doesn’t seem like I don’t know. I never understood
why they would want us to become members. Members of what? Is that what you think about?
Yeah. Member of what? And also, if the church is a
family, if the pastor is a shepherd, if we are sheep, then I also
wonder, for the really big churches, if one shepherd looks after a
million sheep. Is that possible? There is a place for big churches,
and big churches can be well-administrated with lots of elders and pastors.
It can work. Usually in those situations,
the preaching pastor is not going to know you. And while it can
work, at the end of the day, the preaching pastor ought to
know you. That’s the way I look at it. A saying we were taught
in school was, a shepherd needs to stink like his sheep. That’s
why the pastor shows up to work days or loading truck days. You get to know, Derek and I
spent how many hours yesterday in the back of a truck? Those are unique experiences.
We sent a family off. So I think a smaller congregation
can do better. That’s the way I think. I think
a small, strong congregation is better than a big, weak one.
But there are places for big churches, and they can work.
But a lot of churches have bought into the consumeristic marketing
mentality. And a person who’s thinking or
reading David Wells ought to see through it and say, that
is not for me. I think your wife was reading
through something recently. It might have been in Billy Graham
magazine, and she was reading that small, strong churches are
really where it’s at. Yeah. So one last comment. We’ve got to quit. I have another
job next door. The old church I went to, I had
been gone several years, actually. I remember this was before COVID
didn’t completely dissolve. And I ran across this couple
who still attend my old church. And they said, oh, see you Sunday.
I said, you do know I haven’t moved that church for several
years now. Yeah. Yeah. That tells you everything
you need to know, doesn’t it? Yeah, we miss you, Sandra. Yeah,
nothing. All right, let’s have a prayer.
This is going to continue on for several weeks. And so I appreciate
the things y’all said. If you had a thought or a question,
jot it down, because I think a lot of what you said today
is probably more edifying than the organized stuff I said. So
I think we want to value what y’all’s thoughts and experiences
are. We want to see at the end a value of being part of the
church as Jesus gives it. So pray with me. Lord, we give
you thanks that you love your people so much that you do not
leave us in our sin, our misery, our waywardness. You do not leave
us under the tyranny of Satan. You do not leave us chained in
darkness, but you call us. You call us as individuals by
your grace, but you call your church out of darkness and into
the marvelous kingdom of light. And we remember the promises
of Jesus to his disciples and even to us, that when you leave
and go to heaven, which you have done in your ascension, you will
not leave us as orphans, but you’ll send us your Holy Spirit
to guide us in all truth. to be our comforter, to give
us the words to pray when we do not know what to ask, and
even to help us cry out the words of children who are adopted by
you, our great father. We do cry out, Abba Father, as
a response to your grace. And we pray that you would help
us to love what you have left for us in the church with preaching
and sacraments. with gifts and graces to share
with one another, mutual encouragement, growth and grace, edification,
all these things help us to love, be a part of and center our lives
around them so that we can bring glory to your name and let the
light of Jesus be known not only to our children and our grandchildren
and offspring, but also to our neighbors and those in the marketplace
that we encounter week by week. So hear us and help us and bless
us, especially in the weeks to come. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.