Membership Has Its Privileges

Today Beth and I became members at Sanctuary Covenant Church. It involved six weeks of classes on Sunday morning. A lot of it was recap for us, of course, but it also contained a lot of good information (including Dave Olson's biblical mandate for multi-ethnic churches). It's still a bit different for us, being in such a large church. It's forced us to be more intentional in meeting people and building community (we're not great at it yet, but we're getting better). Frankly, I'm still not much for the whole big church scene. But we appreciate the church. Anders loves his Sunday School teachers (it's mutual). The teaching has been extraordinary. We love how the boys both do their own version of "hip hop" dance when music is playing anywhere. Our biggest draw is how the church is a better reflection than most of the Kingdom. The Body is economically, spiritually (people come from almost every denominational background) and racially diverse. I'm still not much of a city person, but if I'm going to live in a city, I want my church to minister to the people of the city.

Church membership isn't popular in today's society. That was very evident when we were installed as members during the second service today. There were probably as many members who stood up to welcome us in as there were new members being inducted. We went through membership mostly as a way to meet new people. But also I feel it's important to be committed to a church for the sake of advancing the Kingdom, for supporting the work of the church and for having a say in the ministry of the church.

I don't know what the future holds for me in ministry or even for us in Twin Cities area, but for now this is our home.