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I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard this. It’s an error that, unfortunately, seems prevalent in our society whenever discussions of church membership arise. In his book, The Church, Edmund Clowney writes, “Christians are not just born-again individuals, they are a family, ‘spiritual ethnics’, the new people of God in Christ. To forget this is to undercut the practice of brotherhood in all the dimensions of daily life.”

Clowney touches on one major reason for joining the church, that of brotherhood, or family. Christ does not save individuals “in a vacuum.” He saves people into a family of like-minded believers, a chosen people called to worship the one triune God.  A family called and continuously equipped to bless one another and the surrounding world. Along with the benefits of this calling, the church can expect to be misunderstood, maligned, hated and often violently persecuted. Weathering the storms of persecution, however severe, is one reason family is important. Christians need one another for encouragement, help, correction and even sometimes rebuke. But enduring persecution is not the only reason the church family is important.

God has equipped every believer with spiritual gifts vital to the health of the church. You have gifts; I have gifts. The church needs us present in it to exercise these gifts. When we eschew membership in a local church body, we not only forfeit the blessings of others’ spiritual gifts, we also deny the church the blessing of our own gifts. In many ways this stunts the growth of the church.

In a culture such as ours, rife with mega-churches, it is easy to forget that church growth is not about numbers, but rather holiness. And holiness is understood, nurtured and matured through relationships with Christ and his followers in the church. Christians are not only “iron” in need of sharpening, they are also fellow sharpeners. Pastor David Stewart reiterated this idea of church as family in a sermon he delivered at Free Grace. Saying it as simply as possible: “Worship is to be experienced among the saints.” The matter-of-fact delivery of Pastor Stewart’s statement is akin to saying that as breathing is necessary for life, so individual participation in the family of God, the church, is vital to carrying out true biblical worship.

Another important reason to join the church is to help address the needs of the secular world around us. “Only God’s truth can set people free; for the church to concede the secular assumption of a chance universe is to deny both Christ’s lordship and its own meaning. The church is the community of the Word, the Word that reveals the plan and purpose of God. In the church the gospel is preached, believed, obeyed. It is the pillar and ground of the truth because it holds fast the Scriptures,” writes Clowney.

We were never meant as Christians to hide our faith under a basket, but rather to display it so that God might be glorified. As Clowney stated above, the gospel is found in the church, and it is the church’s call to shine it forth into the world (Mt. 5:14-16). The world desperately needs the gospel message, and although we can as individuals present the message, the church is God’s primary means of grace in reaching the world with the good news of salvation.

Additionally, Christians have a clear call to care for “widows and orphans.” It is not unreasonable to infer that our call extends even further than just widows and orphans, however, to all people who may be suffering. The church is not only called to love others in need, it is also uniquely equipped for the task.

Christians have been given spiritual understanding, transformed hearts, minds and wills, direct access to God’s very throne room and release from the tyranny of fear. We display this uniqueness chiefly by serving others through the vehicle of the church; as we carry out God’s call to love the world around us, it is through the church that we are able to show the world that our God is alive, beautiful, holy, gracious, loving and sovereign.  And what is the primary way the world judges our religion? Our faith? Even our God? It scrutinizes the church, searching for either hypocrisy or genuineness. Becoming a church member is the first step in proving to the world that it can “know we are Christians by our love.”

These are only a few brief arguments for joining the church–food for thought, if you will. Prayerfully consider these, and other reasons you have heard, then answer God’s call on your life to commit, via membership, to a local church body. Without a church family, your spiritual life is sorely missing something. Conversely, there’s a church somewhere that’s missing something you have been called to provide.

~Ken Morris

The Festival of Lessons and Carols celebrates the birth of Jesus.  It shares the story of the fall of man, the promise of the Messiah, and the birth of Jesus is told in nine short readings from Genesis, the prophetic books and the Gospels, interspersed with the singing of carols.

originally published in The Missouri Ruralist, November 20, 1916

     As Thanksgiving day draws near again, I am reminded of an occurrence of my childhood. To tell the truth, it is a yearly habit of mine to think of it about this time and to smile at once more.

     We were living on the frontier in South Dakota then. There’s no more frontier within the boundaries of the United States, more’s the pity, but then we were ahead of the railroad in a new unsettled country. Our nearest and only neighbor was 12 miles away and the store was 40 miles distant.

     Father had laid in a supply of provisions for the winter and among them were salt meats, but for fresh meat we depended on father’s gun and the antelope which fed in herds, across the prairie. So we were quite excited, one day near Thanksgiving, when father hurried into the house for his gun and then away again to try for a shot at a belated flock of wild geese hurrying south.

     We would have roast goose for Thanksgiving dinner! “Roast goose and dressing seasoned with sage,” said sister Mary. “No, not sage! I don’t like sage and we won’t have it in the dressing,” I exclaimed. Then we quarreled, sister Mary and I, she insisting that there should be sage in the dressing and I declaring there should not be sage in the dressing, until father returned, —without the goose! I remember saying in a meek voice to sister Mary, “I wish I had let you have the sage,” and to this day when I think of it I feel again just as I felt then and realize how thankful I would have been for roast goose and dressing with sage seasoning—with or without any seasoning—I could even have gotten along without the dressing. Just plain goose roasted would have been plenty good enough.

     This little happening has helped me to be properly thankful even tho at times the seasoning of my blessings has not been just such as I would have chosen.

     “I suppose I should be thankful for what we have, but I can’t feel very thankful when I have to pay $2.60 for a little flour and the price still going up,” writes a friend, and in the same letter she says, “We are in our usual health.” The family are so used to good health that it is not even taken into consideration as a cause of thanksgiving. We are so inclined to take for granted the blessings we possess and to look for something peculiar, some special good luck for which to be thankful.

     I read a Thanksgiving story, the other day, in which a woman sent her little boy out to walk around the block and look for something for which to be thankful.

     One would think that the fact of his being able to walk around the block and that he had a mother to send him would have been sufficient cause for thankfulness. We are nearly all afflicted with mental farsightedness and so easily overlook the think which is obvious and near. There are our hands and feet,—whoever thinks of giving thanks for them, until indeed they, or the use of them, are lost. We usually accept them as a matter of course, without a thought, but a year of being crippled has taught me the value of my feet and two perfectly good feet are now among my dearest possessions. Why! There is greater occasion for thankfulness just in the unimpaired possession of one of the five senses than there would be if someone left us a fortune. Indeed, how could the value of one be reckoned? When we have all five in good working condition we surely need not make a search for anything else in order to feel that we should give thanks to Whom thanks are due.

     I once remarked upon how happy and cheerful a new acquaintance seemed always to be and the young man to whom I spoke replied, “Oh he’s just glad that he is alive.” Upon inquiry, I learned that several years before this man had been seriously ill, that there had been no hope of his living, but to everyone’s surprise he had made a complete recovery and since then he had always been remarkably happy and cheerful.

     So if for nothing else, let’s “just be glad that we are alive” and be doubly thankful if, like the Scotch poet, we have a good appetite and the means to gratify it.

Some hae meat that canna eat
And some want meat that lack it.
But I hae meat and I can eat,
And sae the Lord be thanked.