Recently, I had the joy of beginning another New Member’s Class. I often tell our church and the class, that teaching this particular class and subject is one of my favorite things to do. There are many churches today that recommend people participate in their New Member’s Class, but for us at Trinity it is a requirement for membership. When I first came, thankfully this was already a part of our by-laws. Now it wasn’t really enforced, in fact, we had some that were in leadership that had never taken the New Member’s Class and therefore, were still classified as a “Membership in Waiting.” Some of these individuals refused to take the class and wanted to stay in their position! As bizarre as this sounds to Trinity today, it should bring up the question… “Why is this class so important?” Well, below let me ask you to consider just three reasons we discuss in our class.
1. To preserve church unity: The best way to help the unity of the church is for her members to understand what is expected of them. We live in a day in which it is more difficult to join a gym than it is to covenant with the people of God to walk faithfully in His statutes. The result is we have churches who have many unconverted people as “members” of their church, many people who harm the testimony of Christ with their lifestyle, and many that have their names in a machine but never come, never serve and never give to the body of which they claim to be a part. I promise you that those who join Trinity they know who we are, and what is expected biblically of our membership after our 5 to 6 week class. This helps everyone!
2. To help new members fit in the body: Being members of a body means you serve the body. Being a member means you actually show up when the rest of the body parts show up. When we talk about the ministries and opportunities we have to serve Christ at Trinity, it gives our new members an opportunity to see where they would fit in to serve. I know this may be a novel idea, but when people join this body we believe God places them here to give, not to get. Now, in giving they receive, but as believers we are created to serve Christ first, and love the Bride of Christ with a white hot passion. Having a New Member’s Class gives us the ability to explain this in detail.
3. To help new members understand the structure and direction of Trinity: It gives me an opportunity to walk through the Word of God and explain why we are structured the way we are. It gives me an opportunity to discuss doctrine and why we are so passionate about it. We can explain our view about everything from missions to children. When this class is over, about 95% of those who attend join Trinity, but the other 5% know they need to be somewhere else. Either way, it clarifies the direction the Lord has for them.
All of this to say, I am thrilled that the Lord is allowing me to teach another New Member’s Class and I am so excited to share with you how God is working in the life of our church and our new members.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Reasons to Rejoice
I have shared with our church before that, each Monday one of the first things we do as a staff is discuss “evidences of grace” going on in our fellowship. This not only allows us to rejoice in what the Lord is doing in the lives of our church family, but it also reminds us to look for ways that God is working around us. Each year on our Deacon’s Retreat, I have an opportunity to discuss the “Scoreboard” of Trinity. We, as Baptist pastors, have so many people confused as to what success is in the body of Christ, and what should we look for when trying to determine if a church is successful. In short, success is faithfulness! If we are faithful stewards of the gifts, opportunities and time God has given us for His Kingdom work, then that is success. If we are faithful in preaching the Word of God, if we are faithful in carrying forth the Great Commission, if we are faithful in loving one another, we will be successful as a church. Recently, in preparing for a meeting, we began to discuss the “scoreboards” at Trinity and, to be honest, it was a great time of sharing evidences of God’s amazing grace on Trinity. I thought it would be a blessing for our fellowship to see a few of the things that we mentioned (of course time and space will not allow for everything).
• We are involved in, or in the initial stages of getting involved with, a total of 20 different local, national and international mission projects. Of these, we were only involved in 2 three years ago. This ranges from dealing with reaching an “unreached” people group in Africa, to help in planting a church in Vancouver, to helping provide supplies and minister to those in our local Care Pregnancy Center. The passion of the people of God to carry out the Great Commission, not just with our money but with our actions is a great “scoreboard” to look at.
• Spiritual Growth and increased accountability: We have over 60 men in our Men’s Bible Study on Thursday mornings at 6 am. Of these men, there are multiple mentoring/discipleship relationships that have taken root and are meeting throughout the month. We have several senior adult ladies mentoring some younger ladies and we know of at least 4 young ladies who have a total of 8 other ladies they are mentoring. We have over 20 people involved in a Systematic Theology class each Sunday afternoon because they are committed to studying the theology that undergirds our faith. Each staff member has a minimum of 3 other people in church leadership with whom they have a discipleship relationship, and we currently have 24 students involved in evangelistic training. In our Parents meeting earlier this year we had as many as 50 parents coming together to walk through “The Heart Of Anger” and encourage one another in their calling to disciple their children. We have more children involved in AWANA this year than last year! When we had VBS this year, it was the first year (at least since I have been here) that we had all our volunteers in place several weeks out; they were signed up, attended training and were faithful to this outreach.
• We had 109 visitors register since January and we had a total of 77 join our fellowship.
Now, we have no way of knowing how many actual visitors we have had come in our church, but 109 filled out a card, and this means that over 70% of those that we have registered actually come to join our fellowship. This means they come in desiring membership and go through a six week New Member’s Class. Of the new members that have joined, 80% of them are involved in a ministry and are giving.
All of this to say, that these are things that God is doing through our people. These are things that matter! What KINGDOM work is going on? Are we more accountable? Is there real discipleship going on? THIS is what we, as a church, are called to do. Thank you for your love for Christ, and thank God for His wonderful grace!
• We are involved in, or in the initial stages of getting involved with, a total of 20 different local, national and international mission projects. Of these, we were only involved in 2 three years ago. This ranges from dealing with reaching an “unreached” people group in Africa, to help in planting a church in Vancouver, to helping provide supplies and minister to those in our local Care Pregnancy Center. The passion of the people of God to carry out the Great Commission, not just with our money but with our actions is a great “scoreboard” to look at.
• Spiritual Growth and increased accountability: We have over 60 men in our Men’s Bible Study on Thursday mornings at 6 am. Of these men, there are multiple mentoring/discipleship relationships that have taken root and are meeting throughout the month. We have several senior adult ladies mentoring some younger ladies and we know of at least 4 young ladies who have a total of 8 other ladies they are mentoring. We have over 20 people involved in a Systematic Theology class each Sunday afternoon because they are committed to studying the theology that undergirds our faith. Each staff member has a minimum of 3 other people in church leadership with whom they have a discipleship relationship, and we currently have 24 students involved in evangelistic training. In our Parents meeting earlier this year we had as many as 50 parents coming together to walk through “The Heart Of Anger” and encourage one another in their calling to disciple their children. We have more children involved in AWANA this year than last year! When we had VBS this year, it was the first year (at least since I have been here) that we had all our volunteers in place several weeks out; they were signed up, attended training and were faithful to this outreach.
• We had 109 visitors register since January and we had a total of 77 join our fellowship.
Now, we have no way of knowing how many actual visitors we have had come in our church, but 109 filled out a card, and this means that over 70% of those that we have registered actually come to join our fellowship. This means they come in desiring membership and go through a six week New Member’s Class. Of the new members that have joined, 80% of them are involved in a ministry and are giving.
All of this to say, that these are things that God is doing through our people. These are things that matter! What KINGDOM work is going on? Are we more accountable? Is there real discipleship going on? THIS is what we, as a church, are called to do. Thank you for your love for Christ, and thank God for His wonderful grace!
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