Membership: Parts of the Body

Our family have not been "members" of a church in quite a while. Yes, we have attended church, and attended faithfully and even have served in various capacities.

Why not join?  Well, it was just as easy to say "why join?"  We moved here to the Destin/Miramar Beach/Sandestin  area (yes, weird but true, you can send mail to any of those three and we will get it, the lady at the post office told us to just pick one!) and knew we wanted to find a church to attend as a family.

We started attending Destiny Worship Center and really liked it. (it reminded us of 12Stone in Lawrenceville, GA)  They have great worship music/band, student activities and was big enough for us to slip into and just ease ourselves in. Oh, and I'm sure that having a bona fide Starbucks store inside the church didn't hurt either. We even went to a Newcomer's Luncheon but decided to draw the line at that.  So week after week we checked the "regular attender" box on our connect card.  However, unlike a lot of other places, we found out we weren't allowed to volunteer or serve unless we became members.  Toward the end of the year this started becoming a strong desire of mine, but didn't think that my husband felt the same.

As I often do, I think and think and over think.  Mulling over every aspect.  What does being a member mean? What are the benefits? Why join instead of just attending?

Part of the definition of "member" from the Webster 1812 dictionary include:
MEM'BER, n. [L. membrum.]

1. A limb of animal bodies, as a leg, an arm, an ear, a finger, that is, a subordinate part of the main body.

2. A part of a discourse, or of a period or sentence; a clause; a part of a verse. Harmony in poetry is produced by a proportion between the members of the same verse, or between the members of different verses.

3. In architecture, a subordinate part of a building, as a frieze or cornice; sometimes a molding.

4. An individual of a community or society. Every citizen is a member of the state or body politic. So the individuals of a club, a corporation or confederacy, are called its members. Students of an academy or college are its members. Professed Christians are called members of the church.

Why join?
Read I Corinthians 12:11-31 Members are all parts of the body, and all the parts are important.  We are also to be united in the church, "I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose." I Corinthians 1:10  "And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself." Ephesians 1:23

Imagine just for a minute that your eyes decide they just wants to be an ornamental part of your body.  It helps make your face yours.  But they doesn't want to join in and function the way they were designed.  And you could no longer see.  Wouldn't that impair your whole body?  Or what about your fingers?  They just wanted to be dipped in paraffin wax, massaged and manicured, but refused to move, type, lift, etc.  A member that is just "there" but not functioning is basically dead weight, extra baggage.  The rest of the members have to work harder to make up the slack.

And finally, why Destiny Worship Center? 
One of the biggest draws to me was the fact that it is interdenominational.  Non-denominational (basically no particular denomination) I was fully aware of, but interdenominational was a new term for me (Websters' - between, among, or involving different religious denominations).  From their website, "At Destiny, we embrace the term “interdenominational”. People from all denominations can feel welcome at our church. We desire for every person to accept that they belong, first and foremost, regardless of the church background, if any, they may have. As God touches their lives, they will then believe in Him and behave according to His Word. We do not believe God is looking for reasons to exclude people. His nature is to include people. The best common ground we all have is that we believe in Jesus, believe in what He did for us and love Him with everything we have." They express that they don't want anyone to turn away from their background, but to embrace all denominations and diversity but within that to lay the foundation of the common beliefs from the Bible.  For example, there are many Catholics there.  They don't want you to turn from or deny your Catholic faith, but to join together as a body of Christ and worship as one, but from many backgrounds.

Just a couple of days into this new year we get an email from the church saying that there was a new member dinner with the pastor and his wife this week and they would love to have us join them, both the dinner and as members of the church.  And we both felt like the timing was right.  So yesterday, January 9, 2013, we, along with about 12 other couples, went to a dinner, we all took turns around the table giving our testimonies and then had a group photo taken.  On Sunday we will take the kids and go to the stage where the pastor will introduce us to the church body as new members.

My prayer is that in 2013 I become a useful member of the Body of Christ.  Not just a fan, but a follower.  Not a seat warmer, but an active warm, friendly smile.  Not just an ornament, but a functioning part.