The Heart of Membership

One of the things that you heard if you got

here early enough for the announcements, was Josh Colin saying,

good morning. My name is Josh. That's not my name,

that's his name. My name is Josh. Welcome to this

gathering of Crossway Bible Church. Now, in this greeting, we

are being intentional to not just welcome you into a building,

but to actually welcome you into this gathering of this church.

We aren't the only local church in the city on

the street, in this zip code. We are, but we

are a gathering that is committed to be here together,

to serve one another, to pray with each other under

the direction of our elders. The church is not a building.

This church is a people. And I'm not just giving

you a long welcome this morning. This is actually going

to be what our focus is on this morning is

the idea of local church membership. Just like Josh preached

a couple of topical sermons on stewardship and giving, he

asked me to preach on church membership and then specifically

is church membership a biblical idea. On Sundays, we usually

just go one passage at a time through a book

of the Bible. But today we're going to get our

exercise in here finger wise, because we're going to be

flipping all through the New Testament. And if you're not

ready for this high impact sword drill, just go ahead

and be just ready to write those passages down and

study them later, because.

They are very important. Now.

One of the things that I want to clarify at

the beginning is when I say membership, some people think

about other things.

Right. You think of.

Amazon or a gym or Costco, one of my favorites.

But that's actually not what we're talking about here. Those

are those are service providers, and the idea is, oh,

what can I get? Is this a good value for

my investment and my money. That's not what we're talking

about here. We're talking about the commitment to live out

mutual ministry within this body of believers, people who have

covenanted together to join.

This church and care for each other.

I also understand that sitting here we have people who

are in a variety of places and who have a

variety of feelings about church membership. From some of you

who say yes and amen, that's why I'm a member here,

and then some people who.

Convictionally are like, actually, I've taught.

I've been taught that church membership isn't biblical, so I'm

not going to join. And whatever group you are in,

I am so grateful that you're here today. I pray

that God would be working in our hearts to reveal

what is true from His word, and that we would

be soft to understanding what is important to God in

the local church. But before we launch into this, actually

I'm going to start not with the Bible, but with

the Westminster Standards. And you're like, I don't know what

you're talking about. Well, that's fine, because I'll explain it

to you. Is a part of a document from the

seventeenth century that actually helps serve as a theological standard

for churches after the Protestant Reformation happened, and it's still

widely used today. And I actually I want to draw

your attention to section one point six of the Westminster Standards,

which I think everyone has memorized. If I'm no, okay,

well good, so we've got it on the screen. This

will actually help us understand how theology and sound doctrine

are developed. It says the whole Council of God concerning

all things necessary for His own glory, Man, salvation, faith,

and life is either expressly set down in scripture, or

by good and necessary consequence, may be deduced from scripture.

I think you know what most of those words up there,

but deduced right, Maybe not, but we're gonna talk about

deduction a lot this morning. For that, I want you

to think about a police detective who can walk into

a crime scene and just kind of piece together things

like motives and sequence of events and fill in the

missing pieces that are not there with the eye, but

that are there at the scene. And in the same way,

this quote from the Westminster Standards is saying that everything

that we need for life and for theology is either

written down right chapter and verse in the Bible, or

with some careful thinking and reasoning, we can actually put

the pieces together. Let's just take the understanding of the Trinity, right.

This is a very important This is one of the

most important doctrines of the Christian Church. And yet where

is the chapter in verse that says God is a

triune God. It's not there, But that doesn't mean that

it's not true. Believers have understood from the very beginning

of the church that to say that God isn't a

triune God, because the evidence is there, even though there's

not a chapter in verse, but because the evidence is there,

to say that he's not would be heresy. And as

we look at local church membership, I want to think

about that in very similar ways. If the local church

is just a human idea created by man, then we.

Can kind of take it or leave it.

But if God created the church and the idea of

the church, then we have to submit to what he says.

And it's our understanding that God has been clear about

the local church and church membership. This is known as ecclesiology,

or the theology of the church. Using so many big

words today, guys, again, if you're looking for a chapter

in verse, you're not going to find it. But I

believe that we can deduce from the biblical authors that

the local church is the primary way that God is

building for himself a bride, that he is creating a people,

and he is making disciples. This morning, we're going to

examine this question from three different vantage points. Point one

Jesus and we're going to see how he views the church.

Point two will be crossway and we'll see the evidence

for local church membership. And then point three, we'll finish

it up with your sanctification, and we'll talk about how

membership actually gets lived out. Starting with point one. Jesus right,

how does Jesus view the church? And the first thing

I want to point out is that it is a relationship,

and this relationship is going to be the focus of

this first point. Turn with me to Ephesians five. In

this passage, are we looking at a passage that's on

local church membership?

No, no, I don't think so.

But what I do think is there is that this

passage gives us the context what we need to understand

about God's thoughts on the local church. Visians five twenty one,

Paul is talking about to submitting to one another out

of reverence for Christ, and then he turns his attention

to husbands and wives, and we see Paul slip this

in in Ephesians five twenty two to twenty four. He said, wives,

submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For

the husband is the head of the wife, even as

Christ is the head of the church, his body, and

is himself It's savior. Now as a church submits to Christ,

so also wives should submit to in everything to their husbands.

Now we might like pull this passage out and sometimes

get some good marriage counsel from it, because you know,

we see that it says husbands and wives. But the

thing that I want us to think about here as

we move forward, is what does the bride get in return?

Listen to what Christ does for his bride starting in

verse twenty five. Now I want to challenge you again.

We're going to think about marriage. We're going to think

about husbands and wives. We're going to think as a

manner or as a woman. But I want you to

read this and listen to this. Being a child of God,

being someone who is loved by God. Ephesians five twenty

five to thirty two. It says, husbands, love your wives

as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her,

that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the

washing of water with the word, so that he might

present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle,

or any such thing, that she might be holy and

without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their

wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife

loves himself, For no one ever hated his own flesh.

But nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does

the Church, because we are members of His body. And then,

quoting from Genesis two, when God brought Adam and Eves together,

we see this in verse thirty one. Therefore a man

shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to

his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

Verse thirty two.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it

refers to Christ and the Church. Paul here lets us

in on a little secret at the end of the passage.

This passage is not primarily about marriage, and in fact

we see from the scriptures that marriage isn't even primarily

about marriage. No, God created marriage to give us a

way to begin to comprehend his love for his bride.

That's why God set up marriage. Let that wrinkle your

brain for just a moment. This is why Jesus came

to earth. He came to live a perfect life that

fulfilled the law in a way that we never could.

He came to die a substitutionary death in our place,

taking that the punishment for sin upon himself, and he

created for himself a bride who he will love for eternity.

Marriage is a thing that we tend to think this

is ultimate, right, This is the ultimate human relationship is marriage,

and yet God created it so that it would point

to something else. God created as a shadow, as a

pointer to get us to think about His love for

his church. This most important of all human relationships for

every single one of us, will one day end.

But what will never end for.

All of eternity is Christ's love for his bride, the church,

and the local church is not a separate entity from

the universal church. The local church is just a manifestation,

a smaller gathering of His bride, the church. This is

how the bride gets built up, all right, This is

how we row in sanctification is not universally but lived

out in a local church community. And this is how

Jesus views the church. Again, and I think this sets

us up well to look at how we need to

look at the local church. So moving on to point two, crossway,

crossway and the evidence for church membership. While it's not

explicit in these texts, I think that we'll be able

to deduce through church, through these passages that church membership

is actually the standard for what Christians are to be doing.

That it wasn't extraordinary to join a church, but that

everyone in the New Testament was a part of a

local church. Sometimes Josh gives a warning that he's going

to be a little bit teachy instead of preachy. Well, today,

I want to give you a warning that we're going

to be a little bit detectivey as we look through

these scriptures. The first piece of evidence that we'll look

at here is actually what the New Testament authors talk about,

how they talk about the local church, which is the

pictures of the building, the family, and the body. We're

going to start in Ephesians two, starting in verse nineteen,

Paul says this, so then you are no longer strangers

and aliens, but you are fellow citizens, with the saints

and members of the household of God built on the

foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ, Jesus himself being

the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being joined together,

grows into a holy temple. This local church that Paul's

talking to is now one temple built on the foundation

of the scriptures, and with Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone.

I don't want to stretch Paul's analogy too far, but

how do you know if a brick is part of

a building. Well, yeah, you're all these confused faces.

I see. Good, That's exactly what I was going for.

It's pretty self evident if a brick is part of

a building, you just see it in the building. Well,

in the same way, Paul says that the local church

is actually built up of these individual bricks, these individual believers.

But the bricks are never the point. The point of

a brick isn't that it is a self contained unit,

but that together you build something that you couldn't have

built on your own. That together you are something more

than you are when you're a part. That's just like

being a part of a local church, all right. The

second picture we get is that of a family. It

comes up several places in the New Testament, right, Paul

is explicit about it to Timothy and first Timothy five

to one to two, and even in this Ephesians two

passage that we just looked about, he talks about how

we are now in the household of God, right, and

in different places it talks about Jesus as are our

older brother.

Right.

So this is one of the images that's used. Well,

what is a family by the very nature of a family.

It is a collection, it's not an individual. A family

is a collection of individuals that make up a new unit.

Our church.

Family gives us specific people to love. It gives us

specific people to bear one another's burdens because relationship brings responsibility.

And in a similar way to asking the brick question,

how do you know if someone's in your family or not?

I think it's pretty self evident, and that doesn't mean

that if you don't hang out for long enough, you'll

be like, am I part of the family?

Oh?

Man, Like, you're hanging out and that's super cool, but

you're not.

You would know if you're in the family.

So my question is are you in the family? The

final picture we get from the New Testament is that

of the body. Right, this is the best example. It's

used over and over again, and the best example is

actually in First Corinthians twelve. I want to encourage you.

We don't have time to go into it, but go

to First Corinthians twelve. Read verses fourteen to twenty seven.

This week, take a look at them and see how

the individual.

Parts of the body work together.

See how they are not independent, but they're interdependent. And

how they work together for the common goal of health

for the body. No individual part can do it on

its own. What we need is the body being built

up together. It's no accident even today though, when people

talk about churches, we talk about this body, right, because

the body has responsibility to care for itself. All right,

That was the first piece of evidence. What about looking

at the membership roles for the church and you're like,

what do membership roles have to do? That's not in

the New Testament? Oh, let me stuff you right there.

Let's turn to Acts two. Acts two Peter preaches what

is one of the most amazing sermons ever, and then

we see in verse thirty seven the Holy Spirit is

moving in people's hearts, and people cry out. They say, brothers,

what shall we do? Peter's answer, repent and be baptized.

And then we read this in Acts two forty one.

So those who received his word were baptized, and they

were added that day about three thousand souls. First of all,

that is just an amazing event that I wish I

was there for. But also which just thinking through these deductions,

they kept a record, they kept a record of who

was a member there. He didn't just make up there

were three thousand men. There were for three thousand people

who joined First whatever Church of Jerusalem on that Sunday,

on the Pentecost weekend.

It happened. If you, Filippa had to ask.

Four right, Peter and John are getting arrested for preaching

of Jesus. And then in verse four we see this,

but many of those who had heard the word believed,

and the number of men came to about five thousand. Again,

we can deduce that they kept a record of who

was a member of the church. But it's not just

keeping a record. They're also keeping a record of who's

in and who's out. There's a particularly heartbreaking situation in

First Corinthians five.

Right.

First Corinthians five, a man is living in an unrepentant

sexual sin with someone who is probably his stepmom, and

Paul says that for the sake of his soul, the

local church there needed to stop treating him like a

believer because he was showing otherwise. So he tells us

local church in corinth to remove him from the church body. Now,

if you're skeptical, you say, well, we don't know that

he was a member of First Church of corinth No,

but Paul told him to put him out, and if

there was an out at some point he had to

have been in. From this text we can see that

he was living as a part of the church, and

when his conduct had showed actually, I'm not a believer,

Paul says, well, then we're going to treat him like

he's not a believer and not let him be a

part of this body. In one Corinthians five eleven, he says, now,

I am writing to you to not associate with anyone

who bears the name of Brother, if he is guilty

of sexual immorality or greed, or is idolater, reviler, drunkard,

or swindler, not to even eat with such a one.

Now this is built on Matthew eighteen, which is where

Jesus says that if there's someone who is claiming to

be a Christian and yet is living an unrepentant sin,

to tell it to the church and to bring him

out of to bring him out of fellowship. Fortunately, this

doesn't have to be the end of everyone's situation. We

also see in second Corinthians two where there's someone who

has been put out of the church and Paul says,

actually bring him back into the church. He has he

was living in sin. He repented, and now bring him

back into fellowship. There's clearly an inn, there's an out,

and church discipline there accomplished its purpose.

Right.

The guy repented and now he was like, I'm super discouraged.

I want to be back in the church. And Paul says,

we'll get back in here. Church, welcome him back in.

He is repented and he should be treated like a brother.

Church membership is not just a formal process. It's also

the loss of or it's the gain and or loss

if you're put out of these church family relationships as well.

Looking at the accounting from the early church, we can

deduce that there was an inn, there was an out

because they kept records. Now what about the next evidence?

Who are the local church elders accountable for? In Hebrews

thirteen seventeen and near the end of the letter, the

author of Hebrews makes this comment about the church and

how the church is supposed to respond to the leaders.

It says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for

they are keeping watch over your souls. As those who

have to give an account for all the elders in

the room. That is a terrifying verse, that you have

to give an account before God for someone. And combining

this with Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders and Acts

twenty twenty eight, where he says, pay careful attention to

yourself and to all the flock in which the Holy

Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church

of God, which he obtained with his own blood. But

my question is who will the leaders in Hebrews thirteen, who.

Will they be accountable for?

Who are the Ephesian elders in Acts twenty who are

they meant to give this special care to? Is it

zip code specific? Is it like anyone who comes in

the doors? We're accountable before God? For do elders have

the same level of accountability for someone who is covenanted

in membership with them as to someone who has never

made that membership commitment. Like a parent who is responsible

for the behavior of their children. The elders of this

church are responsible before God for the members of Crossway

Bible Church, and the members of this church have committed

themselves to follow.

The authority and care of the elders.

That part is clear, but I don't think we can

deduce that this means that anyone who just shows up

here on a Sunday morning has the same accountability, has

the same relationship with the elders. Relationship brings responsibility, and

if if you haven't joined the church, then you haven't

brought yourself into that relationship.

Yet.

The last piece of evidence we're going to look at

is examining the scope of care within the church.

Flip back to Acts two.

We see throughout Acts that even in the earliest days,

the church was caring for herself Acts two, forty four

and forty five. And all who were and all who believed,

were together and had all things in common, and they

were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds

to all as any had need. And then ahead to

Acts four, thirty four and thirty five. There was not

a needy person among them, for as many as were

owners of land or houses sold them and brought the

proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the

apostles feet, and it was distributed to each as any

had need. All right, well, who was this radical generosity

geared toward? Well in the context looks like it was

geared toward this new local church. Right, This is what

we today call mutual ministry. This is the body caring

for the body. The members first of the First Church

of Jerusalem knew who they were responsible for, and when

they saw people in need, they acted to help care

for this.

New church family.

They were selling off lands and giving the proceeds, but

not just to anyone. They were giving them specifically to

the people in their church who they were caring for.

Because relationship brings responsibility. Today, we show care at this

church through mutual ministry.

Right.

It's not just the staff or the elders who care,

but we work together as a whole body to care

for every part of it. In addition, we have a

benevolence team that works hard for the long term care

of any of our members who are in need, and

often small group leaders act as kind of a first

line of defense for caring for individuals plugged into community

within the church body.

Now, I know that was a whole lot.

To deduce, but I think we see that church membership

is actually all over the pages of the New Testament,

that this is the standard and it was assumed and

modeled by everyone in the New Testament. All right, So

to our final point this morning, your sanctification. This is

going to be the most personally applicable part of this.

What does church membership look like for me?

Right?

What does it mean in my life? Well, let's start

by defining this sanctification. Right, it's a long word, But

what does it mean? A simple definition for what is

sometimes called sometimes called progressive sanctification. I'll just give you

this one from the New City Catechism, where it says

sanctification means our gradual growing righteousness made possible by the

Holy Spirit's work in us. So although there is a

moment when we are saved and justified before God, the

actual growth in godliness takes a long time to work out.

It actually takes an entire lifetime. And this is the

process of sanctification. This is fighting the flesh, This is

putting to death the sin that is in our hearts

and growing in holiness. Why do I bring up sanctification

in the conversation about the local church because your sanctification

is meant to be centered in local church community. I

mean there are other places where God wants you to

be sanctified as well, right, where God will use things

like your home right with your spouse and your kids,

or your roommates, or at work with your coworkers and

your boss, or on sixteen oh four with seemingly every

other person in San Antonio during the never ending construction.

All of those opportunities are for sanctification, are for growth

and personal holiness. But the local church provides a very

unique way to grow in this way, being a member

of a local church is kind of like rock tumbling.

Can you raise your hand if you've ever heard of

rock down? If you have any idea, this is a

lot more than I anticipated. Guys, maybe I'm just uncultured.

But until my.

Crazy uncle Steve explained to me his new hobby, I

had no idea what rock tumbling was all about. So

in order naturally to get smooth rocks, what you need

is wind, water, sand and other rocks, and like somewhere

between hundreds and thousands of years. It takes a long time.

But with a rock tumbler, if you put these sharp

rocks into a rock tumbler with other sharp rocks and

crank it up, then these rocks hitting each other will

smooth it out. It'll knock off the hard edges and

Suddenly what did take hundreds of years or thousands of

years can now.

Be done in just a couple of weeks.

The tumbler is the mechanism for the acceleration of the growth.

And I'm going to use this analogy a little bit

as we talk about understanding sanctification in the local church.

Here are five ways that God uses local church membership

to grow our sanctification. Number one, you need others in

order to grow. You need others in order to grow.

We all have sharp edges, We all have jagged ends

where we were once broken off a mountainside. None of

us were born sanctified, right, we all need to be

smoothed out, but we don't get polished on our own.

We don't get smoothed out on our own. In fact,

how do you know if you're growing in your selfishness? Well,

you have your selfishness tested, right, Someone comes in and

tests that. How do we know if we are growing

in our pain patience? We have situations that come up

that call for us to be more patient. You know,

we don't have what we want when we want it.

And this is why siblings learn how to how to

work together and compromise. Being a part of this church

community will push your sanctification. People will step on your

toes because every single other member of this church is

also in the sanctification process as well. Becoming a member

of a church means that I am I'm open and

expecting to be a means of that God will use

in the lives of others. And it also means that

I am open and expecting to others being the means

that God uses in my life to grow me. God

is never just working on one of us at a time.

He is working in all of us as we mutually

minister to each other, as we care for each other,

as we grow in sanctification together. And what are these

requirements that Crossway has, Well, it's not anything that you

shouldn't already be doing. In his book called the Church,

Mark Dever said, the responsibilities and duties of members of

a Christian church are simply the responsibilities and duties of Christians.

This week, in the front of your bulletin, we put

the four membership commitments of Crossway members right here. If

you are a member this week, I want you to

read these things. I want you to see, Hey, how

am I doing with these commitments? I have committed to

every member of the church body that I'm going to

be doing these things.

How is that going?

And if you're not a member, I want you to

see this and I want you to read through these

and say, is crossway asking me to do something that

is above and beyond what what I should already be

living out, but what I should already be doing as

a believer, as a Christian. Guys, I don't think that

this is extra. It's just giving direction to all the

one anothers that we have in the Bible. Right, Jesus

has called us to live out these one anothers things

like love one another, forgive one another, bear with one another,

encourage one another, build up, serve, show hospitality, to teach

admonish just to name a few things that we're called

to do as a church body. And church membership provides

the perfect opportunity for growth in living out your faith.

Number two, it can bring sight to blind spots. Right,

we're all convinced that we know ourselves the best. But

what does Jeremiah seventeen say that the heart is deceitful

above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?

How many times have I gone into a conversation, thinking, oh,

I'm having a great conversation here, only later to find

out that in my heart was in the wrong place,

that maybe I was claiming to just speak the truth

in love, but maybe I was speaking the truth out

of frustration instead. By definition, we can't see our blind spots.

If we could, they wouldn't be blind spots. We need

others to point those out to us. So when we

have the opportunity to grow, how are you doing in that?

Are you seeing those things and taking a step forward?

When was the last time that you were in close

enough relationship with someone where you pointed out someone else's

blind spot or you asked a friend, brother, sister, what

am I not seeing here? What is an area that

I need to grow in? I just don't know it

yet because I'm blind to it. Number three, you can't

be born into it. You can't be born in to it.

Today is step Up Sunday for kids and students and

the thousands of balloons that we have here. I love

it and I love that every Sunday there are kids

and students who come to this church and want to grow.

Sometimes they want to grow, and sometimes their parents want

them to grow. But whatever the reason I'm glad that

they're here, But your parents faith can't save you. We

have wonderful Crossway Kids leaders and student leaders and they

work in conjunction with parents to help to help try

to disciple kids, and they can give good direction, but

they can't live out your faith for you. If God

has worked in your heart and saved you, then now

is the time to step up and to live it out.

Don't wait to start growing until later. Start patterns of

personal holiness now that will pay dividends for eternity. And

if you don't have a Bible, after the service is done,

go to the Step one table. We'd love to give

you a Bible. We'd love for you to have that

of your own. And if you show up every week,

week after week, but you don't have that relationship with Jesus,

then my words to you are what Peter said in

Acts Too when he said repent and be baptized, turn

from your sins and embrace the free gift of grace

found in Jesus Christ. We would love to help you

walk through what that means. Right, we're at church.

This is literally what we're doing. This is what we're here.

For, and you can also come to the Step one

table and get a Bible. We would love for you

to have one of your own. Number four. You can't

do it over live stream. You can't do it over

live stream. Last week I was sick. I'm not like

deathly ill or anything, just not something that I wanted

to share with five hundred to my closest friends. And

so I watched the live stream of the ten forty

five service last Sunday.

I was so grateful for that.

I was grateful that I didn't get anyone else sick,

and I was grateful that I could that I could

do a lot of what I do on Sunday morning

from the comfort of my bed. I filled out a

connection card like.

I do every week.

I prayed right, I listened to the preaching. I was engaged.

I belt it out the last song I Need You Oh.

It was a great closing song, and yet I wasn't

with the church body. After the service ended, I could

see Nate and Liam Weeks standing up here talking and

I was like, yes, I want to talk to them,

but I'm not there. Josh was preaching and I gave

him some ms right, but Josh couldn't hear them, and

no one else could hear them either. I was singing

my guts out, but there was no one else for

me to encourage singing these wonderful, beautiful truths to.

I saw people leave.

And hang out in the lobby, and yet I couldn't

go and meet someone new, or I couldn't go and

pray for a brother who's having a hard day. I

couldn't do any of those things through a screen. We

can't live out our faith through a live stream. The

church needs every member to be here each week in person,

because that's how we grow together. There are amazing preachers

who have their podcasts and their videos each and every week,

and God uses them and I'm grateful for them, but

they have never once preached with you in mind. Whereas

I know for sure the people, the men who stand

on this platform think about you as are writing their

sermon and how.

To apply this to your life.

Here today, Crossway is better than a YouTube church because

we're real.

We can actually care for you. Now.

No church will do this perfectly, but we will grow

together as God grows us in our sanctification number five.

It reminds us what church is really about. In addition

to the Bibles, that we're so happy to give you.

We also have a whole wall of books just outside

these doors, and those books aren't for decoration.

Those books are actually there for you to learn and grow.

So grab a book, grab a friend, read a book together,

and grow. But only grab what you're going to actually read.

Don't just take all the books and then don't read them.

That's selfish, guys. Let's not do that. One of the

books that we have out there is this little pamphlet

called What Should I Look For in a Church? By

Alex Duke. On page forty two, as he is wrapping

up this booklet, he says this. He says, a church

isn't a crowd of Christians who show up at the

same time every week for some music and a message.

A church is a people who have committed themselves to

help each other get to Heaven. This has quickly become

one of my favorite quotes because when I read it,

I see your faces. I think of the brothers and

sisters who are here who have committed themselves to help

me grow in my sanctification to one day cgs his

face to face. I think of the brothers and sisters

that I have committed to to walk alongside of, to

help encourage, so that we can one day make it

there together, standing before our God and King. That is

the most important commitment that we can make to each other.

Church Membership isn't It's not magic. Joining doesn't just change

us overnight, but God uses the normal, everyday means of

church membership to work something beautiful and eternal in us.

One day, all those who follow Jesus will stand together

before him, perfect clothed in his righteousness. Together who else

has committed to see you get there