FAMILY MATTERS | Membership at Anthem Church

Hey Anthem,

Pastor Andrew here. I’m about to head out and unplug from phone and email for two weeks with my family, but before I do, I’m excited to announce what we will be focusing on this fall at Anthem Church.

For some time now I have been mentioning, in sermons and elsewhere, that we will be reinvigorating and revisiting membership at our church. This fall, we are going to be stepping into this vision in earnest. There are a number of reasons why this engagement with membership is important; I won’t exhaust this point here, since I recently did so in the sermon below. If you haven’t already, please take some time to listen, especially to the points made in the introduction:

Sometimes revitalization and strengthening looks like trying new things, but other times it means simply recommitting ourselves to the things we already know God has asked us to do. In light of this, the elders believe there is no better time for us to revisit church membership and to recommit ourselves as a church to the covenant we have made with God and with one another.

To some, this may seem superfluous, overly rigid, unnecessary… but a thorough reading of the New Testament makes one thing clear: the church is to be united and involved in real, observable, meaningful ways, and we know of no better way to capture the heart of this vision of the church than through healthy membership. If you have questions about membership, fear not… in the fall we will make all things clear. Teaching and good discussion alleviates doubt and confusion, which is why we are going to spend a good amount of time on all of this as a church community. For now, here are some basics of what to expect in September and October.

This process of revitalizing church membership will consist of two main parts:

1. On September 3 we will begin a sermon series for the fall, called Family Matters. This series will cover what membership is, why it’s important, what we believe as a church, what membership looks like practically, and some other important topics pertaining to life together as the church of God. I’m personally very excited for this series; it will be a challenge to all of us (including me), but also a comfort and a guide as we step into our next season as a church family. My goal is to be as clear as possible about what this all means and why it matters in the culture of the church we know and love.
   
   
2. Secondly, we are going to be thoroughly reestablishing our membership. Every covenant member, including the elders, will have the opportunity to recommit to the member covenant. Upon reflection, we as leaders have realized that we do a good job of emphasizing the covenant when people enter into membership, but once we have established members we do a very poor job of holding ourselves accountable to this promise we have made to God and to one another. Those who are currently members will simply have to sign the updated covenant in the fall, but this will be a necessary step for all who wish to continue as members of Anthem Church. This covenant has been reviewed, clarified, and prayed over by the elders of the church, and you will find that it is a thorough, biblical, and helpful guide for our life together as followers of Jesus.
   
   For those who are not covenant members, this whole season will be an invitation into membership. More details about this process will be announced in the fall, but we are doing everything we can to simplify the process down to the essentials in terms of time and content: do aspiring members have all the information needed to make an informed decision about what it means to commit to our church as a member?

Our hope, prayer, and earnest intent in this process is not to be burdensome, or bureaucratic, or to place unnecessary hurdles in front of us as we strive to follow Jesus. In fact, healthy membership actually does the opposite: in a world where it is hard to define what a church is and what it is supposed to prioritize, good church membership provides a track upon which the wheels of truth, love, discipleship, and fellowship can attach and run forward. Without membership, it is very easy to get lost or to drift in the direction of our tendencies, agendas, and preferences. It is good for us to keep healthy church membership before us, that we may together run the race that the Lord has set before us, building one another up to look more and more like Jesus.

May we be strengthened as the family of God, called to the holiness of God, speaking the truth of God, that the love of God may mark our community in ways that bring God glory and invite people into the joy he promises us.

Family Matters begins on Sunday, September 3.