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Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! Bright Wings.

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November 30, 2009

Why Church Membership?

In building the local church for faithful growth and effective outreach to our city, the Pastors and Elders are calling us to covenant faithfulness in MEMBERSHIP, FELLOWSHIP, and LEADERSHIP.

What we mean by ‘membership’ at Four Oaks Church:  ‘the public declaration of your salvation through faith in Christ and your accountability to obedience to Christ by loving others and submitting to one another in our local body’.  For us to grow faithfully, and to reach the city God has put us in strategically, we must build the body of Christ with an abiding commitment to one another as members.

The Biblical Justification: The bible says we are to ‘be members of one another’ (Rom.12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12ff.); part of a body, a family, a household. Jesus said in Matthew 18:15-20 that those who claim to know him as believers yet do not display repentance and fruit in keeping with repentance are to be treated as unbelievers.  This passage assumes there is some degree of formal leadership, and formal commitment to it. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:12 we are not to ‘judge’ those outside the church but those inside. Clearly in the mind of the Apostle there is some clear spiritual and formal recognition of the boundaries and commitments of membership in the local church. 

No Universal/Local Dichotomy: The NT never introduces a dichotomy between the church universal and the church local.  If you are a part of the universal church by the atoning work of Christ, the rebirth through the Holy Spirit, and the exercise of repentance and faith – then your position invisibly in the universal church MUST and WILL be followed by a visible and local expression of these ‘heart’ realities. I have often heard the statement, “I don’t need to be in a local church; I am part of the universal church!” The Bible sees local affiliation with the body of Christ formally as a verification and witness to the spiritual and invisible commitments of the believer to Christ.

The LOVE TEST of Assurance: John speaks of three ‘tests’ for a believer to discern and embrace assurance of salvation: the truth test, the obedience/moral test, and the love test.  Consider the ‘love test’ of the Apostle John in 1 John 2:10-11; 3:10-24; 4:7-12 and 19-21. Consider these passages that plainly and boldly warn us against some assurance of salvation which does not include loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. This love test is discerned in covenant relationship to brothers and sisters in the local church.  It is foreign to the New Testament claim to know Christ as Head of the Church yet refuse to love and care for the body. 

No ‘Regular Attenders’: We have really created an unhealthy category of ‘brother’ in our churches- the category of regular attender.  By regular attender we are referring not to someone seeking to make a wise decision over time about commitment to a particular church.  Such time and wisdom is necessary, and we encourage it as people decide where they should serve and be served in the local church. Usually, the category of regular attender refers to one who attends a church over a long period of time with no significant attempt at commitment or service in the context of the local church.

We have turned our church families into entertainment centers for common consumption of a marketed product. The biblical ideal for the church is not such a market driven, consumer oriented entity. If you are a visitor we will love you and serve you as best we can. If you don’t know Jesus and are seeking truth we exist for you to hear that truth, to meet Jesus, and experience the love of his family. But, if you are a Christian, one who knows Christ and claims to be a brother, then we are going to insist gently but firmly that you live biblically in this biblical family. We are calling one another to covenant faithfulness beyond mere presence and consumption.

As I see it there are six reasons why a person who claims to be a Christian will not join a church:

1. Ignorance- Maybe you just didn’t know or didn’t realize the gravity of such a commitment. We call you to come to Welcome to the Family (our 6 week membership class) and discover what we believe about these things. If this is where God is calling you to serve, be served, be cared for, be taught, then we call upon you to covenant your heart to us as a family.

2. Conviction – You might have a biblical conviction that is different than our position on membership, or perhaps some other issue. If your conviction binds your conscience in such a way that you cannot submit yourself to the leadership then you should seek a church family that allows you to do so. If you can disagree on a conviction yet with a clear conscience submit to this local church (and the leadership does not see it as a binding issue which prevents you from being a member) and not disrupt the unity of the body, then we call you to do so with a glad heart.

3. Pain/Fear/Anger- Many believers have been hurt,  burned, or wronged before in the context of the church. I understand this fully. I am a pastor’s kid and I’ve seen difficult building programs, church splits, betrayal, hurt, in-fighting, abuse by the leadership, what have you. But, there a couple of realities that I keep in the forefront of my mind as I encounter these struggles and pain in the church. First, Jesus loved the Church enough to shed his blood for her, I can love the Church enough to be patient and forgiving with her. Second, I am an imperfect sinner and have done my share of hurting, wronging, and cannot point the finger or sit on the sideline as a victim. When you find a perfect church, I strongly exhort you not to join because you will most certainly be the ruin of it.

4. ‘Surrogate’ communities- In the evangelical community we have created many surrogate communities which we wrongfully look to as our church. It may be a parachurch campus ministry, a Christian school, a bible study group, or just a handful of friends. These ministries are very important in their proper context and according to their proper mission. But they must not, and biblically should not, stand in the place of the local church in the believer’s life. It might meet a specific need in a specific season- but the believer is called to meet the needs of others and not simply have their needs met. We are called to be a part of a family with brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and people beyond our season of life, or demographic niche. We are called to be under biblically ordained leadership assembled and ordered as a church in accordance with the teaching of the Scriptures. If a parachurch ministry is operating as a local church, then it should be held accountable to the requirements and calling of a local church biblically.

5. Autonomy/Selfish Independence- We live in a culture that prizes autonomy above most things. We are skeptical of authority and generally lazy in any sort of real binding commitments. The fleshly autonomous impulse is squarely faced down in the spiritual call to selfless love, ongoing service, and constant submission to one another out of reverence to Christ.

6. Rebellion, Refusal of accountability- I have learned over my almost 20 years serving in the church that for many a failure to commit to the church as a member is truly a sinful refusal of accountability. Membership in the local church at Four Oaks is a call to sacrificial love, biblical stewardship, moral purity, constant repentance and faith. This requires transparency, vulnerability, courage, and faith. Many are willing to pay lip service to commitment to Christ in a removed and distant sense in a 75 minute service once a week. But to live this out in genuine community throughout our lives is another thing entirely.

If you have been regularly attending this church on the Lord’s Day; covenant yourself to our family in obedience to Christ and His Word.

Tags: Church Life

posted by Erik Braun

November 12, 2009

Pilgrim Homemakers: One Church, Many Campuses

There is a passage in the New Testament that talks about being aliens and strangers- yet, in the opposite way that the writer of Hebrews uses the idea. Paul says in Ephesians 2:19-22, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are now fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

So, in relationship to the world and its philosophies, desires, and things we are to be ‘aliens and strangers’. But in relationship to Christ and God our Father and this new household he has called together, this new citizenship, this spiritual temple. So we are to be at one and the same time ‘pilgrims’ (wanderers) and homemakers- members of a growing, thriving, household. Isn’t it sadly the opposite with many Christians? Often in relationship to their things, to temporal desires, they are at home; yet, in relationship to Christ and to His family the Church –they are aliens. We want to be just the opposite: pilgrims in the World for the sake of the world; at home with the church for the sake of the church!  How do we grow as a church home, yet keep our pilgrim heart?

We are growing as a church family. When I came in 2001 we were around 400 in attendance on a Sunday morning. Now in 2009 we are at 1200 in attendance on a Sunday morning. In 9 years we have tripled in attendance. Since our fellowship group model of church life launch a few years back we have 29 fellowship groups around the city with hundreds of our people involved in biblical and intimate fellowship. We believe ultimately that the numeric growth of a church is a sovereign dynamic. It is God who saves people, God brings people, and God grows churches. But the spiritual growth of the church is a non-negotiable. We are accountable to God for how we attend to these spiritual realities. The wonderful thing is that as we are committed to God, honoring and biblical strategies for spiritual growth, these will often give way to God-honoring strategies for reaching the hundreds of thousands of lost people that God has placed at our doorstep.

We want to be able to capture this season in the life of our church with a new ministry facility in the heart of a new neighborhood that we believe is a wonderful opportunity. And we also believe God has blessed us with health as a church, with Godly leadership, biblical preaching and wonderful Christ exalting musical worship, a radically committed family of members, and a vibrant and joyous body life. We want to give all this to the city of Tallahassee through the gospel!
And we will have to be bold and strategic! When we move in to our facility in January we will already be at 70% capacity! We will within 2010 need more children’s space, youth space, admin space, adult ed space and on and on. And we DO want to make more space and move to more space. We want to keep growing! We want more people to hear about Christ. We want more people to join and grow with our church family!

We don’t believe that God is calling us to tear down that facility in 2011 and build a bigger one to do it.

We don’t believe that planting another, separate church in another part of the city is what God is calling us to at this time. (We are committed to church planting. We have poured massive amounts of money, energy, and love into planting Fellowship Raleigh in N.C.; I serve on the advisory board to two church plants with our denomination). So- what do we do?

Local Church: Non-Negotiables

Let’s look at that famous little description of the church in Jerusalem after Pentecost in Acts 2:41-47.  I think we can get a picture of what we might call ‘pilgrim homemaking’ in this passage. I believe that Luke writes with both a ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ purpose – how things in fact were, and how things in fact should be. (Read Acts 2:41-47)

But not ‘prescriptive’ in any sort of rigid and detailed sense (it doesn’t tell us what church buildings look like, there is no Sunday morning order of worship, there is no detail about instrumentation in worship, no cap in attendance, etc.). I believe there are a lot of ways to be strategic and yet faithful to the heart of God’s Word.  Luke here is ‘principally prescriptive’- there are principles of worship and body life that are to be pursued and applied in all manner of ‘styles’ and situations as a church grows and spreads geographically, culturally, and strategically. 

Let’s note a few things about the realities of this church:

• It was very large (many thousands of people): church size is neither good nor bad. You might not prefer a large church, but that is merely preference. You might prefer a small church, but that does not make small churches bad. People often turn their preferences into spiritual or biblical ideals – this is wrong.
• The church gathered in a larger corporate settings for ‘koinonia’ (for teaching by the apostles)
• The church gathered in smaller home settings for ‘koinonia’ – fellowship, sharing, caring, growing
• There were ‘spiritual’ non-negotiables that bound the church: biblical leadership, biblical teaching, the Lord’s Supper and prayer, sacrificial stewardship, gathering corporately/assembling together
• There was a spiritual ‘life’ and ‘heart’ non-negotiables that bound the church: devotion; awe/reverence/holy fear; brotherly love; joy; generosity

The elders of Four Oaks think there is a principle of ‘church growth’ that is important here. It is important for Four Oaks to grow ‘corporately’ – under unified leadership, receiving unified exhortation and teaching, being mobilized as a larger body to impact the World. The high priest accused Peter and the church in Acts 5:28 of ‘filling Jerusalem with your teaching’. We want to be a force- a mobilized body of believers filling Tallahassee with God’s Word and the good news of Jesus Christ.

But, we also want other ‘church growth’ principle illustrated her in Acts 2.  We want believers growing intimately – growing in day by day one another-ness from home to home. This means sharing our homes, our families, our lives in a way that brings accountability, sanctification, joy, and real spiritual transformation.

United Church/Many Campuses

As we grow in our corporate, weekly gatherings and as we grow in our home to home fellowships we want to pursue the NON-NEGOTIABLES we discovered here in Acts 2 in terms of what we do: biblical leadership, biblical teaching, celebrating the ordinances of Lord’s Supper (and baptism), stewardship, and gathering in large and small settings. And we must continue to pursue those NON-NEGOTIABLES in terms of what our hearts look like, who we are: devotion; awe/reverence/holy fear; brotherly love; joy; generosity.
Over the past year the pastors and elders have become convinced that God is leading us to move into this facility as a ‘ministry hub’ that will be leveraged to reach the whole city.

We believe we can faithfully grow as a church family as outlined above by existing as one united church family meeting weekly in corporate gatherings in many campuses/communities.
We don’t believe that this strategy is really any different than what we pursue now through our fellowship group model for church life: we gather on Sundays in two services, yet spread out geographically in three communities (North, South, West) for other gatherings, and for weekly fellowship group meetings. Large corporate worship, intimate fellowship group life.

We are prayerfully seeking God’s provision and open doors to begin strategically opening a campus in either the South or West communities within 12-18 months of moving into our new facility. This would not be ‘another church’ or a ‘church plant’. This would be Four Oaks Church: under Four Oaks leadership, under Four Oaks preaching (either through utilization of technology, or preaching teams, or both), using Four Oaks resources. But, it would be a Four Oaks Lord’s Day Gathering on a South Campus or a West Campus. We would hope by God’s grace and provision that we would put worship gatherings throughout the city over the next 2/5/10/20 years that anyone living in the Tallahassee/Leon county area would not have to leave their communities in order to gather with their church family for corporate worship. It is my hope and prayer that this would extend into the greater six county neighboring region that represents half a million souls.

You will have a lot of questions about this, no doubt. I’ll be getting into more about what this might look like in the next two weeks and beyond. We are going to grow as a family- we want to do it strategically and biblically. We want to continue as pilgrims – but grow in our homebuilding as brothers and sisters and fellow citizens.  The elders and pastors believe whole-heartedly that this strategy (one church with many campuses) allows us to do that. It will take devotion on your part. It will require biblical teaching and spiritual health. It will take much prayer. It will take bold leadership. It will take sacrifice. It will take great generosity. But- I believe with all my heart that it will lead to glad hearts, awesome praise, gospel proclamation, rebirth and salvation.

Let’s not walk into a temple built by human hands on Jan. 10th.  Let us remember the exhortation of Hebrews 13:13-16 - “let’s go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Tags: Church Life

posted by Erik Braun

November 12, 2009

The Present Precipice

Here we are- poised to move into an incredible facility in the middle of a bustling and strategic neighborhood in NE Tallahassee. A new facility is a wonderful thing; a tremendous resource, and a great opportunity to grow and thrive as a church family. But we are also faced with very real spiritual dangers as we move into this facility. God’s Word is clear that faith filled believers are to be pilgrims in this present age and not settlers.

Hebrews 11: 9-10; 13-16, “By faith Abraham went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land…for he was looking forward to the city that has true foundations, whose designer and builder is God…all those in the wilderness who died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged they were strangers and exiles on the earth…such people are seeking a homeland…they are looking toward a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” 

We are not to settle here building nice facilities as if they are the goal and not the means to some greater purpose and mission.  We are not to walk in to that facility on January 10 and say, ‘Whew! We made it! Now I can rest! Now all I have to worry about is paying for my daughter’s wedding in this nice new sanctuary and setting aside some dollars for my inevitable funeral to be conducted here!” We are not to walk into the sanctuary and look toward what need it might meet for us- what special niche it serves to provide us. Pastor Doug Wilson puts it this way: “The planting and building of congregations [and church buildings] is not like building your own private nest egg. The point is not to gather enough to live on, and then retire comfortably.”  The Elders of the church have decided firmly that this move to the Four Oaks center will not be a move into our spiritual retirement. That facility is not a spiritual nest egg for you to enjoy. It is a stewardship that we are to continue to boldly invest in, maneuver, and leverage for the sake of future growth, gospel proclamation, true spiritual heritage, and eternal reward. There is a very strong desire to dig a big hole over on the corner of Kerry Forest and Shannon Lakes and dump our talents in it. Then we gather weekly and polish our hidden gold, or slowly parse it out to our kids, or those friends we deem worthy. That is the settler’s impulse. But we will not be settlers. We will continue to be pilgrims – aliens and strangers. That building is a tabernacle- not a temple- it has tent pegs and canvas walls; not marble columns and gold plated interiors. It is a temporary thing, a talent to be leveraged, invested, and stewarded toward an eternal city- a city with foundations whose builder and architect is God. Our goal in this age is not buildings- it is people, lost people, people who need spiritual family, people who are bound for hell- we want to gather as many of them, disciple as many of them, equip as many of them as God allows and provides- to give them a hope beyond this life and a relationship with the God who made them and the Savior who bought them- our buildings, our talents, our treasure, our gifts are for that purpose.

We live in a city with a population of 175,000 people. We live in a region with over 400,000 people: 270,000 in Leon County; 150,000 people in six neighboring counties. We live in a city with two major universities with student populations of over 50,000 (in the almost 10 years that I’ve been here well over 100,000 students have come to Tallahassee in the most crucial, tender, and pivotal years of the life and have left to go into all corners of the globe). We live in the Capital City of our State- a State that has been critical to the political life of the country and indeed the world. We have access to Representatives, Senators, Governors and countless political leaders and influencers.

It is the desire of the elders and pastors of this church to seize this opportunity- this present precipice- in the life of our church to push our family to grow in a way that honors God and magnifies Christ; to reach the city and put our imprint on this city for the glory of God; and to build this body of believers into mature, committed, connected, and radically Christ-centered disciples.

Tags: Church Life

posted by Erik Braun

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