Two Kinds of Members

It's membership time at The Father's House. During January (through the 17th, actually), we are open for folks to sign up as members for 2009. The requirements include a profession of faith in Christ, regular attendance at TFH, "good standing" with the fellowship (i.e., not under church discipline), and a signing of the roster.

Beyond this, the question of membership is something of an open one. By that, I mean that all organizations have one or both of two kinds of members: those who give to the organization and those who receive from the organization. Right away, let me say that this is almost never pure. Virtually all members of every organization do at least some of each: giving and receiving.

Let's consider Costco for a moment. Those who join Costco as members immediately give something to the organization: an annual fee. The rest of the year, however, they do not normally think about this fee. They just show up at Costco and expect to receive—namely, great discounts on quality products and those delightful free samples! When the year rolls around and it is again time to pay that annual fee, members may react in three ways: (1) pay it without hesitation, knowing that the trade-off has been much in their favor; (2) think through their use of Costco and its products to determine whether the trade-off has been worth it and then make a decision whether or not to continue; or (3) make no effort to renew that membership because they know it has not been worth the money spent.

Now church, any church, is an organization of a different kind. Membership can be easily seen as simply a formal recognition of belonging. In the old denominational days, membership was especially important to many churchgoers. This is not normally the case now. And frankly, if the legal structure of TFH as a non-profit religious organization didn't call for it, we probably wouldn't have much need for formal membership ourselves. So when you sign the membership roster at TFH, you aren't saying "I belong to this fellowship" (you can certainly do that without being a formal member!), so much as you are saying "I belong to this organization."

But here's where it gets more than a little muddy. Where do the fellowship and the organization overlap? My answer would be that they overlap in our ability to function on a week-to-week basis. And if that is true, it means this about membership (or even just regular involvement): we don't have the luxury of functioning like the happy Costco members, where we receive much more than we give. If we are to function in a healthy way week in and week out—with a clean and tidy building set up to welcome folks, with adequately led children's and youth classes and nursery, with committed greeters and ushers, with prepared and passionate ministry from the stage and among the seats—then all those who consider TFH "home" need to plan to help consistently and frequently.

This is, however, not just an organizational idea, it is a biblical idea. The Holy Spirit equips us all in ministerial ways, and God created us all in skilled ways (and paved the way for the training we may have received along the way in our lives), and the Word encourages us to love and to serve and to work with our hands. You don't have to get up front (either in the main gathering or the various small groups and breakouts that we do) in order to be a big help to both the fellowship and the organization.

Would you please, as you consider signing the membership roster this year, also consider how you can make a commitment to help the fellowship this year?

An addendum (added January 6):

Look at this great Q&A with N.T. Wright that appeared on Mark Roberts' blog today (and yes, I dare you to call Chris "chief" henceforth!):

How do Christians glorify God in their daily work or does our work have some other, more nuanced, purpose?
There are all sorts of different jobs. George Herbert’s famous hymn, “Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine.” It’s a very important principle of Christian service. Now, it’s much easier, no doubt, to think of yourself as doing important Christian work if you’re preparing sermons or being chief in a music band in church or whatever. But actually, the guy who sweeps the step is doing just as much good as you are, maybe more. I am delighted when I go to a church and see people doing mundane things with a sense of pride, because they’re doing them for the love of God and the body of Christ. I love those people. Nobody knows who they are; nobody knows their names. As a bishop, I try to go around and thank them because I can see they’re doing a good job. Of course, we’d all like to be the architect who builds the cathedral or the composer who writes the symphony or whatever. But most of the time, we do what needs to be done. Christ shines out of the way we work, not so much what we do, but how we do it.