Why belong to a local church

Acts tells church elders to pay careful attention to themselves and to those God has entrusted to their care. The role of an elder is no small thing, and you want to be under the leadership of people who take it seriously.

Did you know that you are uniquely gifted to serve God and other people? Romans tells us that each member of the body of Christ has gifts that they should fully deploy. Verse 5 makes a powerful point that each member belongs to all the others. Whatever your gifts are, you should use them to faithfully serve others. If you attend Watermark but have never joined, you can check out our membership class.

It happens every month or two, and is a great way to learn more about the church and take a step toward joining. If you go to another church, find out what their membership process is, and go through it. It may not be as formal as going to a class or signing a membership covenant, but the important thing is that you express, live out, and hold to a commitment to that local church in all the ways God calls you to.

If you are a member: What were your reasons for becoming a church member? What value do you see in being a member of a local church? When a person becomes a believer in Jesus, they need to build genuine relationships with others who love Jesus and are hungry for personal transformation.

While we may have many relationships with non-Christians who can help and advise us in natural things, our deepest intimacy needs to be forged with other believers in the local church who are seeking to follow Jesus. Choosing friends and building fellowship in the church is a choice that you must make. Because the church is made up of people from all walks of life, it is important to build quality relationships with different people and open your heart to the diversity of age, race, gender, and social status that make up the body of Christ, the members of the church.

The local church is the place where believers enter into the sacred covenant of marriage. Today marriage is thought of more as a legal contract issued by secular government. But human governments did not invent marriage.

Neither can they change its definition. Christian marriage is a union of one man and one woman through vows of love and commitment made before the families and believers of the local church. The Bible calls marriage such a holy gift from God that everyone is to hold it in high respect Hebrews The Apostle Paul said that marriage was so sacred that it was the closest thing on earth to the special relationship the Jesus has with His people, the church. Marriage is the place that God designed for us to express and enjoy our sexual passions.

Naturally, everyone will eventually leave this earth through the passage of physical death. As we learned in chapter seven, the physical body is still mortal, and therefore ages and wears out.

Sometimes death occurs unexpectedly, prematurely, or painfully. While God has promised us an abundant life John , sooner or later this life will be over for us, as well as for everyone we know and love. This is a sacred passage for the believer as they prepare to enter the presence of God and their heavenly home. It is also a time of great emotion, as surviving family, friends, and co-workers endeavor to make the difficult adjustments of living their lives without their loved one.

It is in these moments that the local church should be at her very best—a place believers go for comfort, counsel, as well as natural and spiritual support. The ministers of the church conduct special services for the families and friends of those who die, and offer perspective and hope to the living.

At these moments, we need the body of Christ. All of these passages of life—birth, marriage, raising families, facing tribulation, and physical death—are events for which God has provided the local church as a means of celebration, support, healing, and restoration. When you were born again, you received at least one spiritual gift from the Lord. That gift was designed to be used in the local church. Some people imagine that their spiritual gifts are the same as their natural talents.

We all have natural abilities that we may use to help others and serve the church. But the gifts spoken of here are given to the believer for ministry to others in the local church. They are spiritual in nature and come from the Holy Spirit. Every place in the New Testament where spiritual gifts are mentioned, they are always mentioned for use within the local church between believers. Not a single time in scripture are our spiritual gifts given for ministry to the unbeliever. Not once. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

One of the most important purposes of the local church is to discover and learn about spiritual gifts so that you can use the one or two that God has given you. He gives these gifts for use in the local church body. Nor should we understand this passage to apply to individual believers alone. He was giving these keys to the church as a collective community. The local church should also organize to meet the needs of their generation in a practical way.

No religious group in history has been more creative, more generous, or more effective in sharing its message. The first schools, hospitals, orphanages, elder care facilities, and disaster relief agencies were started by, or in the name of, the church of Jesus Christ. Modern science was a result of Christian thinkers seeking to explore the physical world as an act of worship to God. No religious faith has spent more of its own resources on relieving the suffering of humankind—particularly the suffering of those who are outside its faith.

Christians have been on the cutting edge of technology throughout the ages to spread the message of Jesus. Massive public preaching events, books, radio, television, movies, internet, and every form of creative arts have been used to share Jesus with the world.

Some of the finest paintings, sculptures, architectural marvels, songs, operas, and musical genres, have been inspired by a love for Jesus and His church.

While it is the responsibility of every believer to share their faith with others through personal testimony, it is our collective witness of mutual love and worship that is the greatest force for evangelism in the world. We all need a roof over our heads. That is true physically and spiritually. The local church provides spiritual covering for people of God.

A covering is not for the purpose of controlling or caging the people in its care. It is designed for protection, safety, and securing an environment for healthy personal growth. The local church is a community of believers who are living transparently with one another under the oversight and covering of spiritual leaders. Every member of the body of Christ needs the spiritual covering of the local church and pastor.

There is a supernatural grace that connects members of the church to each other and their pastor s and leaders. Regardless of how long you have been a Christian or how gifted you may be, a believer should always seek to operate under the safety of a biblical spiritual covering in the local church.

Last, but certainly not least, of the ten purposes for the local church is so that believers can participate in sacraments and ordinances.

Additionally, the Bible teaches there is special ordinance of the church called the laying on of hands. Each of these three holy experiences are given to the local church for the purpose of experiencing and building the transformed life. Water baptism is a sacred rite of initiation into the body of Christ. While the event in itself does not save us, the Lord never intended for us to be saved without experiencing it. Baptism is designed to accompany our faith as an outward expression of our love for Jesus Christ.

Throughout the book of Acts, whenever anyone believed in Jesus Christ they were immediately baptized in water. Baptism is the doorway into participation in the local church community. Jesus began His earthly ministry by being baptized by John at the age of thirty.

This event marked the moment the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus with power to preach, teach, heal, and perform miracles. When the church began on the day of Pentecost, over three thousand people were born again and water baptized that same day. Some churches baptize infants, believing with the parents that these children will grow up in the church community and know the Lord. While this practice is not mentioned in Scripture, it is nonetheless a very ancient tradition.

What the Bible directly teaches and commands us topractice is the baptism of believers. When a person is mature enough to understand the gospel message, sense the conviction of the Holy Spirit for their sin, and believe for themselves in Jesus Christ, the church is to baptize them in water as soon as possible. During this special moment, the believer declares they are separated from sin, Satan, evil spirits, and every curse that was a part of their past life. The love of God enfolds the believer through the experience, bringing comfort and assurance that they have died to sin and been raised with Jesus to a new life.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations , baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Jesus began His earthly ministry by receiving water baptism , and ended His earthly ministry by introducing the new practice of Holy Communion. Communion is a sacred event that demonstrates our ongoing fellowship and intimate connection with the body of Christ.

It is a celebration of our relationship with Jesus and His family—the church. The word commune means to share intimately with another. It is the basis of the word community. Therefore, Holy Communion is a sacred event that should be experienced with the full community of believers in the local church.

The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! In this moment, God was declaring through John how His Son had come to deal with the problem of human sin—as a lamb. There is one Jewish feast that involves the sacrifice of a lamb. It is known as the Feast of the Passover. Every spring, the nation of Israel would celebrate the Feast of the Passover in memory of the last night they spent as slaves in Egypt.

God had warned the pharaoh that if he did not let His people leave Egypt, terrible plagues would come upon the land. The final plague was the most severe. God told Moses to instruct the people to sacrifice a spotless lamb and spread its blood over the lintel and side frames of their homes—forming the endpoints of a cross.

The doctrinal statement tells what the church believes about salvation, the Bible, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin and other important doctrines that are taught in the Bible. When a person becomes a member he is identifying with the church and what the church believes.

He is saying, "I want everyone to know that I believe what this church believes, and this church believes what God says in the Bible. I believe the Bible and I believe in exactly what God has said. What God has said on certain key issues is reflected in this doctrinal statement which is based on the Bible. Sadly, we are living in a day when very few people are committed to much of anything.

Students may not be committed to their studies. Many citizens are not committed to their country and they do very little to make their country better and sometimes do very much to make their country worse. Working people are not committed to doing a good job at their work. Many only care about making money and they often do a very poor job. Many would rather loaf than work hard. Real commitment is a rare thing today. It is one thing to visit a church or to attend the services at a church, but it is another thing to be committed to that church.

When a person becomes a member of a local church he is saying, "I am a part of this church and therefore I am committed to it. As a church member I have certain responsibilities that I must faithfully carry out! Suppose there is a piece of paper on the floor somewhere in the church building. A person who is not a member might walk right by this paper and not see a need to pick it up.

A member should never do this. I did not throw this paper on the floor but I will do my part and pick it up and throw it away. Tom and Sam are friends. While he is there he sometimes helps Sam with chores. But Tom is not a member this household. He is just a friend and a visitor. It is different with Sam because Sam belongs to this home. Sam needs to be committed to this home because he is a family member. Sam has certain chores and responsibilities that he must carry out so that the home will be what it ought to be.

The same is true in the church. There are many people who visit the church and who attend the church and who are friends of the church. They may even help the church in different ways, such as volunteering for church clean-up or church workdays. But these people are not committed in the same way that church members ought to be.

Here's another illustration: Think of a man and a woman who decide to live together even though they are not married. This is sinful and wrong see Hebrews , and yet it is something that people do. In this kind of "living together" relationship there is no real commitment.

If things do not work out well, then it is very easy to walk away and find somewhere else to live. Marriage is quite different. Marriage is a commitment made publicly before God and before many witnesses. If things do not work out well for two married people, they cannot easily walk away from each other. They remain married unless certain legal action is taken such as a divorce. So it is in the church. Some people come to church without any commitment.

They can walk away and leave the church any time they wish. This is not true for a member. The member has made a public commitment before God and before many witnesses.

If a member decides to leave the church for the wrong kind of reasons then the church must take some kind of definite action. The church member should be committed to the church and the church should be committed to that member. We need to remember that people come to church for different reasons.

The doors of the church are not locked. They are open to all that want to come in. Some come in who are curious. Some come in who are interested. Some come in who are seeking. Many who come in are not even saved. Some come through the church doors even though they do not really want to come.

Perhaps they come because their parents bring them. A young man might attend church because he has an interest in a young lady who attends, or a young lady may be interested in a young man. These are just some of the reasons why people come. This should help us to realize that many of those who come through the doors are not committed to the Lord and to the local church His local church. When a person becomes a member of the local church he is saying this: "I want everyone to know that I attend this church because I believe what this church teaches.

I am saved and I want to grow in the Lord 2 Peter. I'm not just a curious spectator. I'm one of the players on the team! A healthy member is a serving member.

Some people come to church because of what they can GET good teaching, the blessing of being with Christians, etc.

But a committed member comes to church not only to GET but to GIVE not just to be ministered to but also to minister; not just to be served but to serve. At the Middletown Bible Church there are certain things that people are not allowed to do unless they are members. These would include such things as being a leader Elder, Deacon , teaching in a class, singing in the choir, ushering, taking up the offering, etc.

If a believer refuses to be a member of the local church then something is wrong. Why would a person refuse to be a member of a local church?

Refusal says something. What does it say and why? Are there any valid reasons for not becoming a member of a good local church? A saved person needs to be identified with other saved people. What would happen if the church were to allow anyone to teach a Sunday School class? What if an unsaved person were allowed to teach your Sunday School class?

Would this be good? Why not? Would this person be able to teach a good lesson on how to be saved?