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The Apostle Paul gave us a great imagery of membership in the church, that of the human body. The image is found in his letters to the Romans and Corinthians.
The final section of Warren's book deals with Building up the Church. He deals with growing in faith to maturity and what it takes to get there.
At St. James we have members, and Warren tells us we need to move the gathered crowd of attenders from the various programs we offer and form them into a congregation of members.
While this whole section is important, on page 311 there are 12 questions asked of the members of Saddleback. Apply these questions to St. James. How are these 12 questions relevant to us?
This marks the end of the book study. I hope you have enjoyed reading and discussing the book as much as I have. There is much to learn on our journey of growth. As long as we are willing that growth that comes from God will happen. Please join us in the season of Easter when all of the study groups come together and share their thoughts as a part of a pot luck. Details to follow.
Father Murray Still
1. What does God expect from members of his church? We talked about the two great commandments – love God and love our neighbours. We reminded each other of the importance of “acting as we speak”: showing our beliefs in our actions. We should all act out our ministries/missions, doing what we are best able to do, and help others discover their individual ministries. We reminded each other we can all do more than we think.
ReplyDelete2. What do we expect from our members right now? We thought we probably “under-expect”, but God does not. It is hard to believe Christians can fulfill God’s expectations, but that is an act of faith we are asked to make. “People need to reach,” said one. “Try to do more than they think they can.” The Bible suggests we can do whatever He requires of us if we let Him help us. How do we do this?
3. What kind of people already make up our congregation? We have a wide range of people with a wide range of talents, commitments, and experience. But we are missing two generations and will continue to diminish unless we act quickly.
4. How will that change in the next five to ten years? See above – we are concerned that the church membership will diminish naturally unless serious efforts are made. Here were a few more (and some repeated!) suggestions: (a) we could go from house to house with free Bibles and an offer to clean yards (b) we could offer food and games in the churchyard (c) we could offer workshops on current issues (d) we could distribute nice flyers inviting community to come to a meeting to ask questions about faith and social issues (e) we could visit houses at Hallowe’en dressed as angels and tell people they’ve been touched by a St. James angel, and tell them about some major event
5. What do our members value? Current members value the worship experience and the Christian family of the church. That’s the type of church we are. Some are very interested in the buildings and keeping them in good shape, many are really interested in preserving tradition. There is an almost universal value in the survival of St. James Anglican Church.
6. What are new members’ greatest needs? Most of us felt they need heartfelt welcome. We wondered if we could set up a kind of welcome committee, to offer a kind of mentoring into the life of St. James. It could be done with self-identification of committee persons, or a card we ask all attendees to fill out, and which we follow up on, to help people find their niche here. One person repeated the needs listed on p. 245.
7. What are our long-term members’ greatest needs? Again, one person listed the needs of all Christians, p. 245. Another person said that what the long-term members need is stability. It is more possible to focus on worship if you don’t have to adjust to new orders of service or kinds of ritual. They may also need respite, since some are doing a lot of church work. The greater one’s responsibility in the service, the harder it is to focus on the personal communication with God. Still another person talked about how hard it was to develop what Warren calls spiritual maturity – where is one to look for guidance? Some very helpful sources were mentioned: the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine; Esther de Waal’s book Seeking God; various texts by Thomas Merton; quiet days at the Cathedral. Keeping a spiritual journal is also helpful.
8. How can we make membership more meaningful? We felt we had been dealing with this, but perhaps the idea of encouraging people to start ministries, groups, prayer circles, etc. as Warren does in Chapter 19, was a good one.
9. How can we insure that members feel loved and cared for? We need to have a team of visitors to help the rector keep in touch with the sick or the sick-in-heart. That would be good.
10 What do we owe our members? Easy: love.
11. What resources or services could we offer our members? and 12. How could we add value to what we already offer? We should work out a new inventory, perhaps using the lists this group has posted.