Leadership and membership

My time serving as a leader in church started when I was about 6 months old into the faith. Since then, I have served two terms as a Lifegroup leader. And in these two terms, I have experienced a loss of leadership from above. Suffice to mention here that I was left without a direct leader to account to. In both ordeals, I must admit I questioned God why, more particularly for the latest one. 

Loss of leadership is never a new thing, especially in Hope Church Singapore. One question perhaps I have heard people ask, along with loss of leadership, is the meaning of being a Hope member. I joined Hope at a time when God was slowly moving the church away from the old regime of thinking, along with some pruning. During the process, I saw leaders leaving the church, many past hurts exposed and even a scandal at the top of the whole entire movement. Along with this, many people left as well, thus exposing cults of personality that certain people have built along the years. This was evident during my younger days when people seem to mention the names of these leaders at the same breath as God, as if they are actually worshipping the leaders. And when these leaders left, some left with them. 

Exposing the question of the meaning of being a Hope member is akin to questioning the meaning of being a member of local church. I find it strange for people to ask this question. 'What does being a Hope member mean?' This question came at the wake of my latest ordeal with leadership. As I reflect further, I find that this is a non-question. The person who asked me this question was perceived to be a matured believer within the church. I am by no means criticising the person but I think to ask such a question is to miss the bigger point. 

What does God say about being a member of a local church?

Plenty. 

And I believe that believers have no lack of materials to go to with regards to the importance of being a committed member of a local church. To summarise from Mark Driscoll, he provided from the Scripture a few evidence that the NT does talk about being a member of a local church:

1. They kept numerical records (Acts 2:37-47)
2. They kept records of widows (1 Tim 5:3-16)
3. They held elections to select deacons (Acts 6:1-6)
4. They exercise church discipline (Matt 18:15-20, 1 Cor 5, Gal 6:1)
5. Their leaders were responsible for giving an account of their leadership and the church was asked to submit to their leaders (Heb 13:17)
6. They had an awareness of who was a church member (Rom 16:1-16)
7. Most of the epistles were written to address specific churches at given places.

These seven evidence assumed a form of local organisation. 

So what does this have to do with being a Hope member? 

Plenty. 

Being a Hope member is part of the whole call of being a committed member of a local church. While it does not have to be Hope, we must realise that even deciding whether to be a Hope member is a decision point that reflects our stand towards commitment to a local church. Yet being a Hope member means much more, which I highly suspect a lot of Hope people do not realise. Hope was birthed out of a desire to fulfill the Great Commission and our mission statement to build Christ-centered disciples to plant biblical vibrant churches all over the world reflect that DNA. Today, although we are still learning much from other more established church planting movements, one needs to realise that this is our DNA ultimately. 

I know of a sister who decided to move out of Hope to go over to Victory Family Centre. The purpose was to be discipled as a church planter by going through VFC's formal training programme. One might question if this means walking out from Hope but I would dare argue that it is precisely her Hope DNA that has prompted her to make this important move. It stems from her understanding what it means to be a Hope member - to be part of the disciple making process.  Hence to ask what does it mean to be a Hope member is really the wrong question. The question pointed back at us is really what God intends for us in His grander scheme. The scripture says it clearly that we are saved by grace through faith and we are created to do God's good work which He has prepared in advanced to do (Eph 2:7-8). What are the good works? 

And I dare say that a lot of Hope members have not fully comprehend the meaning of this. And I must admit myself included. We do not know what this entails and we happily stepped into a membership class, hoping to progress in the church. Unfortunately, we hold a view too naive. The church is never meant for our playground and never meant to be used to achieve our own means and purposes. The church does not exist to achieve our purposes, whether in Christ or not in Christ. The church exists to achieve the purposes of Christ. A subtle difference there. 

I shall end my ranting and get back to what I was previously doing - catching up with mangas...