Involvement in Your Local Church

We all want something out of our church.  This in itself is not a bad thing - after all, the Scriptures are fairly clear that we are going to gain benefit from gathering together.  It is commanded that we do, but we gain encouragement and edification and growth together in Christ.  We gain the chance to serve one another and love one another and in doing so, we are served and loved.  I think that many people have a wrong idea about what church is and what church does.  For many, church is just something to do.  This "doing" concept of church involves people who are just there on Sundays and check off a box on their to-do list.  They have done church and can wait a week or two before feeling as though they need to do it again.  Some people do church and are really involved in church.  They tend to get burnt out because they are simply doing what they know to be right.  Many times, these people have a hard time saying, "No."  They fill our positions and things seem great, but they too are simply doing church.  There are people who have been "doing church" for so long they now believe it is someone else's turn to "do church" and believe they have earned the right to sit still for a while and just observe and sometimes complain.  In fact, there are many different ways that people "do" church.  They can be involved or uninvolved.  They can be long time members or first time visitors.  They do not however develop authentic relationships within the context of church.  They may have friends, but their church friends likely do not know the real person, they are able to "do" church in whatever way they deem best. 

So often when we consider the work of the church we are thinking in the context of doing church together and the old 80/20 principal comes into view.  20 percent of the people are doing 80 percent of the work.  But notice the word between the numbers - "doing".  We must break free from this unbiblical mindset of doing church. Instead, we need to "be" the church.  The church is not something outside of ourselves that we do, but something that we are.  It is an identity.  We are the church.  We talk about this in theological terms, but then when it comes to our practice we revert to doing church together.  If we are the church, it changes our perspective on things.  First of all, there would be no one who was unwilling to participate.  Paul talks about one body and many members and all the members are critical to the function of the body.  If you are a church you are indispensable to the work of the body of Christ.  It does not matter how much you do, it matters that you are being you - using the gifts that the Spirit has given you to serve the body you love dearly because it is YOUR BODY!  You are the church. 

I believe if we could think in these terms it would solve a lot of issues that all churches face.  If we are doing church it is easy to fight over ways that church is done.  If we are being the church we would set aside personal differences for the glory of Christ.   If we do church we can complain it is not done right, if we are being the church we realize every time we say something negative we are insulting ourselves.  It helps us avoid burnout because we are not doing church but being Christ's representatives and it is for Him we serve.  It would help because all of us would be involved in some way.  It would help in a number of other areas as well.  So, be the church this week.  And I hope to see you, because the body is not the same without you!