Healthy Church Members

I believe in church membership.  I believe it is vital for the discipleship of every Christian to be rooted, planted, and covenant together with a local church body.   

Every time I meet another Christian I ask “Of what church are you a part?”  I don’t ask “Where do you attend?” or “What church do you go to?” because living out a growing Christian life is about so much more than simply attendance or adherence to a local church body.  As Christians we are “members” of the body.  The local is a microcosm of the universal.  Local church membership matters.   

I’m teaching a membership class at our local church this Sunday afternoon/early evening.  In preparation for the updates I’m making to my class notes I finished a book this afternoon called What is a Healthy Church Member?  Here is a basic summary of the 10 attributes the author brings out, accompanied by quotes and observations.     

A healthy church member is…

1) An expositional listener

“Expositional preaching is that preaching which takes for the main point of a sermon the point of a particular passage of Scripture.  Expositional listening gives us a clear ear with which to hear God.  It helps us to focus on God’s will and to follow Him.  Expositional listening protects the gospel and our lives from corruption.  It encourages faithful pastors.  It benefits the gathered congregation.” 

2) A biblical theologian

“To practice biblical theology is to know God himself…the church member who is serious about knowing God is the member who is committed to what the Bible says about God, because the Bible is where God tells us about himself.” 

3) Gospel saturated

“The first order of business is to know the gospel.”  Timothy Keller sums up the gospel this way: “You’re a sinner saved by Jesus’ work, not by your own work.”  “It sometimes appears as though some Christians believe the gospel was meant to be preached widely until it reached them and then stored safely in the vault of their personal history, away from everyone else.” 

4) Genuinely converted

“The healthy church member—the true church member—must know the work of God’s grace in his or her own soul.”

5) A biblical evangelist

A biblical evangelist is genuinely converted and calls others to the true gospel.

6) A committed member

“The local church is the place where love is most visibly and compellingly displayed among God’s people.  It’s where the “body of Christ” is most plainly represented in the world.”

7) Seeks discipline

“Not only do healthy church members accept the Lord’s chastisement, but they humbly accept correction from others.” 

8) A growing disciple

“We’re far too vulnerable to settling for being thought of as mature rather than actually being mature.”

9) A humble follower

This chapter talks about the healthy church member’s attitude toward leadership within the church. 

10) A prayer warrior

“The how and when of prayer boil down to two biblical teachings: pray constantly and pray in the Spirit.”  

This is a great book well worth the read.

 

Gungor at LifePoint on March 13

We’re looking forward to hosting Gungor for a concert at LifePoint on Tuesday night, March 13.  These guys are one of my favorite groups, amazing artists, and I’m sure this is going to be an awesome night.  Get your tickets here.

 

“Humility” this Sunday

Here are the quotes on pride and humility from my sermon this morning.  I’ve also added my source for these quotes; most come from Humility by C.J. Mahaney. 

Jonathan Edwards:
“Pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ…the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts…’What a foolish, silly, miserable, blind, deceived poor worm am I, when pride works.” 
(from Humility)

Charles Spurgeon:
“Depend upon it, our judgment is very much like a pair of scales: if Christ goes up self
goes down; and if self rises Jesus falls in our esteem. No man ever sets a high price upon self and Christ at the same time.”
(from my source for Spurgeon quotes)

John Stott:
“At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.” 
(from Humility)

D.L. Moody:
“God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.”
(from 3000 Quotations on Christian Themes by Carroll E. Simcox)

C.J. Mahaney:
“Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.” 
(from Humility )

Terrell Owens:
“I love me some me!” (I’m sure you can find this on YouTube)

Humility

This Sunday our Philippians journey at LPC takes us into Philippians 2:1-4.  The title of my message is “The U and I in Unity.” 

We’ll be diving into the issue of humility, because humility is the main ingredient in a community, relationship, or any group that is unified.  You and I will never attain unity without humility.  And the level of unity we experience will be in direct proportion to the level of humility we exercise. 

Humility is a discipline.  It’s not something that “just happens.”  It results from a conscious decision an individual makes to get over themselves.

Humility marks the mature Christian.  John Newton put it this way:  

“Young Christians think themselves little; growing Christians
think themselves nothing; full-grown Christians think themselves less than
nothing.” 

How beautiful is that phrase “full-grown Christians?”  Our goal as Christians should be to attain to a level of maturity that can be categorized by “full-grown” (Ephesians 4:11-16 comes to mind).  Full-grown doesn’t mean we stop growing, it means we stop acting like my 4-year old. 

I love my 4-year old.  She is so sweet and so thoughtful.  But there come times, many times over the course of a week, where she shows herself to be just what she is: four.  As her father I don’t let those times discourage or dissuade me from working to unconditionally love and care for her.  I’m not surprised when she acts her age.  As a father I work hard to develop her, lead her, and set a context in my home that can provide optimum opportunity for her to mature.  But maturity is only possible through humility. 

When is it that you and I grow?  Is it when everything works out perfectly and we are swept along in a rhythmic current of ease and comfort?  No.  It is when things are tough, confusing, burdensome, and painful that we truly grow and mature.  But I would venture to say that without humility such growth is impossible. 

Why?

Because humility postures us to look within and ask the question: “How can I change?”

I’ve heard it said that to pray for humility is a “dangerous prayer.”  But is it one worth making?

Charles Spurgeon said it this way:

“I believe every Christian man has a choice between being humble and being
humbled.”

Sound like it may be time to hit my knees.

Great Weekend at LPC

This is going to be an excellent weekend at LifePoint Church. 

In about an hour our youth leave for Winter Camp, a weekend journey to Mount Adams where they’ll have a “Run-in With Grace.”  I spent this morning with my good friend Mike Goff, he flew in from Boston last night and is here to preach for the camp.  Mike preached a couple of youth camps for me when I was a youth pastor in Olympia and is an outstanding communicator.  In all, 127 students and leaders are heading up to Winter Camp, 40 of them were able to receive partial or full scholarships due to over $2000.00 contributed by givers at LPC.  Amazing stuff!  The youth will return Sunday afternoon.  

Later tonight (7pm) our Mpact girls (K-5th grade) will be joined by their Dads for the Father/Daughter Ball in the Gym at LPC.  It’s a great time where Dads and daughters dress up and enjoy a night full of decorations, dancing, and good food.     

On Sunday morning I’ll be continuing Surprised by Joy: Penned in Prison, a series on the book of Philippians, with an exposition of Philippians 1:27-30.  I started my prep this week intent on making it through Philippians 2:4, but once again this marvelous letter blew me away.  There is far too much depth in the last four verses of chapter one to make into chapter two this week.  My message is titled “Walk Worthy,” and I’m very expectant about the impact this passage will make on all our lives.  It’s going to be a fun one! 

Sunday night our weekend culminates with our Annual Business Meeting.  Over the last 6 weeks we joined together on Wednesday nights in a short series I put together called Talkin’ Church.  The goal of that month and a half was to teach through the “Gear Up” vision that we are currently engaged in for the year of 2012 at LPC.  Sunday night will be the finale of Phase 1 of Gear Up 2012, as we look back through 2011, vote on Constitution and Bylaws Resolutions, and affirm members for the Church Board.  I encourage all members to come out, and if you’re one of the 78 members who have joined in the last 9 months, I highly encourage you to join us for your first annual meeting as an LPC member.  It will be a good time, we have a lot to celebrate as a church family.

The Church is a Field

In 1 Corinthians 3:9 Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that they are “God’s field.”  Over the last 6 weeks we’ve been Talkin’ Church at LifePoint on Wednesday nights, and we’ve been examining the biblical metaphors for the church, including the “field.”  If the church truly is a field, being involved with the church means we’ll be engaged in agricultural endeavors.  A dangerous shift takes place in any church that slips into archeology instead of agriculture.  Here is the difference:

Agriculture:                            Archeology:

The place: A field	The place: A dig site
You live in the present and plan for the future.	You live in the past.
Everything is focused on the harvest (Luke 10:2).	Everything is focused on what happened before.
After the harvest, you work hard to re-plant for future harvests.	After discovery, you think about what life may have been like when what you discovered was alive.
Your faith is tested, you are dependent on God to bring rain and give increase.	Your faith is not tested, not much is at stake, because you’re not producing something new or alive.
The ground is constantly pulverized, so that life can be brought forth	You don’t pulverize the ground so that it can produce life (through planting), you stabilize the ground so that nothing from the past is disturbed.
There is forward motion and constant change.	You are looking to memorialize days gone by.
It is hard work, but it is all focused toward producing life and life-giving sustenance.	It is hard work, but it is focused on discovery and preservation of the past.

Pray Today

Here are the two quotes on prayer from my message this morning.  They are both from chapter 8 (“Brothers, Let us Pray”) of John Piper’s book Brothers, We are Not Professionals.

John Piper:
“Oh, how we need to wake up to how much “nothing” we spend our time doing.  Apart from prayer, all our scurrying about, all our talking, all our study amounts to “nothing.”  For most of us the voice of self-reliance is ten times louder than the bell that tolls for the hours of prayer.  The voice cries out: “You must open the mail, you must make that call, you must write that sermon, you must prepare for the board meeting, you must go to the hospital.”  But the bells tolls softly: “Without Me you can do nothing.” 

A.C.Dixon:
“When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend upon education, we get what education can do; when we depend upon man, we get what man can do; but when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can do.”