BELONGING TO A LOCAL CHURCH
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always. –A.W. Tozer
In all the different places I grew up—from trailer parks to apartment divisions to little yellow houses—the word that wouldn’t describe any of them is “peaceful.” But that’s pretty common where abuse, addiction and financial scarcity cast their shadows. To me, “home” wasn’t a place of safety or refuge but a source of secrecy, seclusion and shame.
Not to say that I have zero happy memories from that time: I grew up in the country and spent my childhood outside, picking wild blackberries, jumping on hay bales and playing in the woods. I read a lot. I had friends. But the good parts of childhood often seemed like tealights placed in a storm cellar, small flames swallowed by the dark. I looked forward to leaving my town (and secretly, my home) and going to college.
With a scholarship offer and not much else to go on, I ended up in Denton, Texas. I made friends with a group of Christian women, and, because I didn’t have a car, I ended up tagging along with them to The Village Church on Sundays. I was a “baby believer,” seeking after God and what it meant to be a Christian, something I’d heard a lot about but had seen conflicting examples of. And here, for the first time, I found a place and a people who truly felt like home.
A Place to Belong
It took several years of being a part of the church, but one day I realized that there was nowhere I wanted to go more than to worship with that body of believers each Sunday. Walking in, I felt peace, love and acceptance. This had nothing to do with the building, no magical line over which I stepped that ushered me into instant beatitude. In fact, if you saw the church—the none-too-appealing orange brick, its sad lack of natural light—you’d probably wonder why people wanted to go there at all. The appeal didn’t come from the aesthetic surroundings. It came from the people gathered there.
Edmund Clowney knew this when he said, “The congregation, not the building, is holy….The church is holy because the congregation is the house of God.” Just as there’s no substitute for mankind’s savior other than Jesus Christ, there’s no substitute for belonging to the people of God. No group or club or organization will do as much for the Christian’s soul and spiritual growth.
Churches should not be places of wounding; they should facilitate healing.
It’s the elder who texts you to say they prayed for you that morning. The member you’ve met once—twice?—but who listens to your fears about motherhood anyway. The pastor who asks, “But how are you really?” because he wants a deeper answer after, “Fine.” I felt a sense of belonging at my church because the people there knew me, loved me and wanted to continue knowing the state of my mind, my heart and my soul. Like most good things, it took time for this to develop, but it did.
I know this is not every person’s experience. Like the hurts I carry from my childhood, others have been scarred by their experiences at churches, hurt by the people there. This is true, and it is devastating. It is devastating because it shouldn’t be so.
Churches should not be places of wounding; they should facilitate healing. They should be where the neglected, the voiceless, the broken-hearted, the crushed in spirit and the weary find love, kindness and the hope of Jesus Christ. When you find a people and a place like that, you yearn to belong.
How to Belong
But today, especially in the Western world, wanting fulfillment outside yourself isn’t a desirable trait; no one hopes to be described as “dependent” or “needy.” Yet, inside us all, no matter what image we project, there is a deep longing to belong. Christians should recognize this longing as part of the way God made us—to live in community with Himself and with other people—rather than trying to hide or deny it, as we’re often tempted to do. We shouldn’t embrace the world’s virtues of independence and self-sufficiency. More than 300 years ago, the poet John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” And, going back almost 2,000 years: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
If you want to belong, you must make a commitment.
Belonging is hard. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it can’t be forced. So how does someone who wants to belong move toward it? I have three initial suggestions to offer, and you’ll probably think, “Well, duh. That’s obvious,” when you read them. In theory, each is incredibly simple to do, but in practice, can be incredibly difficult.
Show up.
Show up to weekend services. Show up to prayer nights. Show up to Home Group. Show up to picnics, holiday parties, baby dedications, worship nights and everything else. Show up when you don’t want to. Especially when you don’t want to. You know that saying about how familiarity breeds contempt? I would like to counter with my own experience: that familiarity can also breed a depth of love like I didn’t know was possible. Being in and around the Church grew me in my knowledge of and subsequently my love for the Lord, for the Bible, for His mission—and my love for the Church. If the Church offers both the most hopeful and most joyous message to transform lives, why wouldn’t you want to be a part of it as often as possible?
Serve somewhere.
Serve in Little Village. Serve in Connections. Serve on the parking team. Serve in your group. Serve in your group member’s ministry. Serve in your group member’s ministry’s ministry. The first place I served at the church was with the greeting team. This is like the 101 of serving—just smile and say hello as people walk into church—but it felt like an advanced step at the time. Talking to people, especially strangers, didn’t come naturally to me (or smiling, to be honest). But the more I served at weekend services, the more I got to know people and the more they got to know me. Being “known” by others was huge for me, someone who, as a child, felt like I always had to be on guard and keep secrets about my family and my home life. Taking that first step with the welcome team led me to serve with students later on and also helped me find a Home Group. Serving led me to greater involvement and even greater relationships.
Become a member.
Become a member of a local church. There’s no other “become” suggestion here; it’s pretty straightforward. If you want to belong, you must make a commitment. This gets twisted in our culture in small and big ways, from cancelling plans at the last minute to no-hard-feelings, no-strings-attached hookups to opting out of marriage altogether. Shockingly, “keep it loose, keep it casual,” isn’t really the ethos of the Bible. And while the Bible doesn't outright give believers a command to be a member of a local church, it does call them to community and to belong to other believers in deep ways (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12:4-16; Col. 3:16). Being vulnerable isn’t easy, but commitment requires it. It took me three years of attending The Village, getting to know people, joining a Home Group, going to events and serving before I became a member (partially because the membership class was always full!). But when I did, I committed with my whole self.
Belonging for Good
This isn’t to say that once you belong to a church, you always will. That’s okay, too. There are times for change, for new relationships, for new jobs and new towns, for shifts that a person can’t predict. Life isn’t static; why would your relationship to God and His Church be?
The safe, peaceful home that I desired as a child never came to be, but as an adult, I found that and more within my local church. I found the Church. I pray that those who are seeking a place to belong do, too, and that it reflects what Paul calls for in Romans 15:5-7:
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
You may belong to a place for a time, or you may belong for your life. But when it comes to the Church, to the body of Christ, you will always belong.
11 Reasons Why You Need to Belong to a Church
1. Because you need the regular support and encouragement of Christian fellowship.
The Christian life is not designed to be lived in isolation, and those who try it that way are likely to crash! (See Hebrews 3:12,13, 10:25; Colossians 3:16.)
2. Because fellowship provided by Christian friends is no substitute for belonging to a church.
You choose your friends because their ideas and style are similar to your own, God puts different people in a congregation so they can learn from each other. (See Titus 2:1-10.)
You choose your friends because their ideas and style are similar to your own, God puts different people in a congregation so they can learn from each other.
3. Because gifts can only rightly be used by someone who is a member of a congregation.
Gifts are primarily for the congregation, not for the individual and are rightly used to build up the church. The picture of a church as a body tells us that our various gifts complement each other. You don’t see a foot or an eye wandering around by itself! (See Romans 12:1-13; 1 Corinthians 12.)
4. Because God’s basic unit is the church, not the individual.
The story of the Bible is that of God making, shaping and refining his people, beginning with Abraham. The lives of individuals like David, Isaiah, the Disciples, and Paul have their meaning because they are part of God’s continuous community. It has lasted c.4,000 years – and there are no signs that God has changed his plan! (see Genesis 12:1-3; Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:11-21.)
5. Because, without it, you are not paying the price of being a Christian.
The ‘solo flight’ is a very attractive style of Christianity for some, but it evades a basic element, the cost of discipleship. Jesus called his followers to serve their community of faith… to be ‘slave of all’. (see Mark 10:35-45; Ephesians 5:21.)
6. Because you cannot understand the New Testament properly unless you belong to a church.
Most of the New Testament is addressed to churches. If you only read the Bible privately, then you will not be in the right place to hear God’s word. You will ‘privatise’ its message, and so misunderstand it. (See most of Paul’s letters.)
7. Because basic maturity in faith and knowledge is only found in the church.
The Bible clearly teaches that those who cannot cope with the church ‘system’ are immature (see Titus 1:5; Hebrews 13:17), and that maturity and fullness of faith are discovered as a corporate experience of the Christian community. (See Ephesians 3:14-21; 4:13-16.)
8. Because sharing in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper is basic to Christian obedience.
We share in these sacraments because of the command of Christ. They are not private rites but corporate actions of the body of Christ. A ‘grab and run’ approach is wrong; sharing in them means belonging to a church. (See 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:17-34; 12:13.)
9. Because submitting to Christian leadership is integral to New Testament Christianity.
‘Going-it-alone’ is okay in the short term, but eventually we err if we imagine that we do not need structures and human authority. God’s provision of order and authority in the church is his realistic way of helping us. (See Titus 1:5; Hebrews 13:17.)
10. Because ministry teams, evangelism teams, and Christian societies are no substitute for churches.
Special groups and teams are more exciting than churches, because they attract people of similar aims, ideas and abilities. They do good work but are not the same as churches, because they are limited in membership and task oriented. Churches have to accept everyone, gifted or not, and so they more accurately reflect God’s free grace. (See Titus 3:1-7.)
Special groups and teams are more exciting than churches, because they attract people of similar aims, ideas and abilities. They do good work but are not the same as churches
11. Because listening to sermons online is no substitute for receiving God’s words in the church you belong to.
We are called to grow to maturity in churches, not only as individuals (see above). We need people to whom we are accountable for our hearing of God’s words. The sermon you need to hear next Sunday is from your church minister, who loves you and prays for you. You cannot assess the lifestyle of the online preacher, so you cannot assess their message. We present an edited version of ourselves online: it is people whom we meet who are better able to assess us and evaluate our lives. (See Hebrews 3:12,13; Acts 20:28; 2 Timothy 3:10,11)
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24-25 (NRSV)
The Privileges of Belonging to a Local Church
In this pastoral epistle, Paul instructed Timothy to oversee the church at Ephesus. There were several false teachers who were distorting the gospel and disrupting the ministries of the church. Paul’s emphasis on leadership, gospel, and structure was intended to prioritize the mission and ministry of the church.
If you are reading this, then know that your church matters. The church matters because we are God’s family (Ephesians 3:14), the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12), and the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:32). Christ died for the church so we could belong to him and to one another.
If you want to become a child of God now, then say this confession:
"I choose to repent today. Also I choose to believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose up for my justification. The scripture says, *"If you confess with you mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved"* (Romans 10:9). Therefore, I believe in Jesus with my heart and confess him as my Lord. Now, I am born- again (Amen)."
PRAYER FOR HEALING & DELIVERANCE
So put your hand on the part of your body that needs healing. Also on your chest for inner healing of your spirit or soul. You can also do it on behalf of your loved ones.
Now in the mighty name of Jesus, be healed of cancer, HIV/AIDS, barrenness, insanity, lameness, blindness, deafness, dumbness, fibroid, tumour, broken bone, hypertension, epilepsy, kidney failure, liver failure, weak heart, leprosy, emotional crisis, failed marriages, failed ministries, failed businesses, academic failure, broken heart, depression, wounded conscience, and all manners of sicknesses and diseases.
In the name of Jesus, I command your total deliverance from generational or family curses, spirit of death, bondages, and so on.
Be healed in Jesus' name! Be healed in Jesus' name! Be healed in Jesus' name!
SAY THIS ALOUD TO RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT
Also Jesus said, *“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses…”* (Acts 1:8).
And on the day of Pentecost *“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance”* (Acts 2:4).
Therefore, I receive the Holy Spirit by faith right now and I begin to speak in an unknown tongue (unlearned tongue) as He gives me the utterance.
I command every foul spirit [spirit of fear, spirit of unbelief, spirit of doubt, religious spirit, unforgiving spirit…] wanting to hinder me to stop in its evil operation in my life in Jesus’ name.
Thank you God for filling me with your Spirit in Jesus’ name (Amen).
INVITATION
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Apostle Dr Josiah Ndubuisi
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