Collaborative

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God’s way of being a member of a church is for us to be members of one another. IF we are members of the same body then we are members of one another. This isn’t a knock on being an official member of a church, but that membership is made more meaningful by truly, organically functioning as members of one another. Conversely that official membership is rendered spiritually meaningless by the absence of some experience of organically functioning as members one of another. I met a pastor who utilizes a kind of 2 month rule. He allows people to function in his church and use their gifttings for up to 2 months before he expects them to officially join the church. If they haven’t joined by then, he steps in to deny them any further ministry in the church, though he allows them to attend if they so desire. He seems to me to be missing the point of the church being members of one another. Those people that he has had to shut down in ministry may have already been members in the organic sense, which would have been benefiting the entire membership. He seems to come at the situation as if the ones he decided to exclude were only benefitting themselves and not ministering to God and other members.

At any rate being members of one another also affects the way we grow. We don’t grow individually but we grow in proportion and in relation, and in coordination with one another. Our adolescent bodies back in the day had seasons and even spurts of growth that were orchestrated by the growth (Pituitary glands?) centers in our brains. It’s the same way spiritually, the Holy Spirit orchestrates our times of growth in concert with the entire Body of Christ.

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