All of us like to think that we are good church members, but sometimes we aren’t as good as we think we are. A sobering question is what would happen if you left your church? Would you be missed because of the attitude that you had and the quality of work that you did? This is a real question and should be taken seriously. Maybe we should ask ourselves what kind of church members we are. Let me share some things with you that fifty three years of working with churches as pastor and as a Director of Missions has told me about good church members. Space does not allow me to list all of the qualities of a good church member, but what I mention should suffice.
I think that a good church member is faithful in attendance. Understand this, attendance is not the be all and end all of church membership, but it is important. It is amazing to me that a church today is doing well if it has 200 members if 100 people are in attendance on a given Sunday. I know that there are times that even a good church member can’t attend, but he or she will be normally be faithful in attendance. I do not mean that a good church member is just a warm body at church, but is one that uses his or her spiritual gifts to serve in the church. A good church member is not just faithful in attendance, but faithful in service as well. A good church member will seek to win others to Christ and get them into the church. I think that a good church member has a good attitude about his or her fellow church members. The New Testament teaches us that Christians are to be loving people, and we should certainly love our fellow church members. There might be people in church that are hard to love, but that does not excuse us from loving them. The Savior who built His church built it on love for people. The Bible tells us to bear with one another. This does not mean that we are to grit our teeth and say, “at least I’m not going to kill him or her.” It means that we should swallow our pride and love all of the people with whom we serve. I think that love is a missing ingredient in a lot of churches, and it is difficult for a church to prosper when love is missing. Lack of love is a great cause of divisions and splits in churches. A loving person is not a divisive person. A good church member will certainly love and support his or her pastor, and will seek to make his service at their church happy service. Any criticism of the pastor should be good for him and for the church, not destructive and mean-spirited. I think that a good church member can be depended on to be a good steward of what God has given him or her. I’m not going to preach a tithing sermon here, but I do believe that a good church member can be depended to maintain the finances of a church. The Bible is not afraid to tell us that we are to be givers. We are to first give ourselves to the Lord, and we are to give ourselves in service in the Lord’s church. When we learn to give of ourselves, we will have no problem giving to enable the church to do the job that it was called to do. We will be cheerful givers and Paul told us that “God loves a cheerful giver.” This means that God loves it when people give cheerfully. It does not mean that He does not love non-givers, but he blesses cheerful givers. There are many other things that I could write about good church members, but in my experience what I have written here is important. Based on these points, are you a good church member? Bro. Joe
1 Comment
Becky Yager
3/4/2013 11:17:10 pm
Thanks, Bro. Joe.....always appreciate your columns!
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