Saturday, May 13, 2006
Church Membership
What does Church Membership mean to you? Read the article I linked from our May 12th E-Letter and give your thoughts and opinions.
About Me
- MZ Church
- Lothian, Maryland, United States
- MZ is a compassionate evangelical church in South Anne Arundel County. We believe the Bible is the Word of God and try to live our lives following God's teaching found in and through it.
1 comment:
Memership in Christ's church is for those who commit themselves to the vows of membership: rejecting sin, evil, and injustice, professing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, promising to live the Christian life, and to be a faithful part of Christ's church. I think we all agree to that.
Are all members Christians? In all probability, no they're not, just as not all who profess to be Christians are truly Christian. Only God knows someone's heart.
But the sticky question is: how repentive or "mature" someone should be before joining, and have they repented of all the "right things." Maturity (at least my understanding of it) is an ongoing process. We reach different stages of maturity. The Bible speaks of "reaching maturity" as if it's something in the future. I believe that the maturity God is looking for at joining is a conscious repentance from sin, and an embrace of Christ, his way, and his church. Obviously, we're always repenting, always growing more faithful to Christ, always becoming more authentically Christ-like in our life, and becoming more effective parts of the Body of Christ.
But does God require that we see every single sin in our lives as sin and fully repent of it in order to join? Absolutely not. If that were the case, none of us would be members. So why exact that standard on those who appear to bear some outward or obvious sin, a sin they are not mature enough to see as sin, even though they repented and are repenting of many other sins in their lives? Obviously what's really at stake is whether or not we have repented and are repenting of sin that we know is sin. And if we're all honest, everyone of us struggles with that to some degree! And yet the grace of God goes with us.
Let's point out the pink elephant in the middle of the room. The looming issue here is whether or not practicing homosexuals can or should join the church. I believe that biblically the practice of homosexuality, both in the physical and emotional sense, is a sin. And we can't lose that value in order to accomodate those who wish to be practicing homosexuals.
However, let's say a lesbian couple comes to church, receives Christ as Lord and Savior, repents of their sin, and wants to join the church. But, they are not at a place of maturity to see that their sexuality as sinful. Do we then bar them from joining? If so, then none of us can be members, because we all joined with sin we were not mature enough to see and repent from. Think about it. You or I may not have had outward/visible sin like homosexuals, but sin is sin in the eyes of God, is it not?
In this debate, I think we need to couple rightousness and grace together. You can't have one without the other. Righteousness is living to be like Christ. Grace is what gets us there, one step and one day at a time. And for each of us, that process is going to look very different. I just pray we have the eyes to see that the same is true for our gay, lesbian, and homosexual brothers and sisters, that while they are sexually sinful, the grace of God is working in them to make them more and more righteous. And the same is true of you and me, too!
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