On November 2nd at City Church, we will have a membership seminar for anyone thinking of becoming a member. This may not be the world's most exciting topic, but it is one of faithfulness, call, and belonging, and we hope that you'll read a bit more about why we think membership is so important. Join us with your questions on Saturday, 11/2, from 9am-noon at the Russian Center.

There are two words we want you to consider: church and member. In the broadest sense, the church is made up of all those who have been joined to Christ and make up his body in the world. But the most common sense of the word in the New Testament is local and specific, referring normally to a group of Christians living close enough to one another to gather regularly as disciples of Jesus. It's easy to think of church in the broadest sense, but the New Testament brings it down to our actual lives in community. The church is local, close and right here.

It gets more intense when we think of member. When the New Testament was written, the word that we translate "member" referred to a part of the human body, most commonly an arm or leg. Prior to the emergence of Christianity, the Greek word was never used in a metaphorical sense to describe persons who were part of an organization or group. Instead the original readers would most naturally have contemplated the picture of themselves as arms, legs, noses, and other appendages on the physical body of Jesus Christ. This is why we say that the church is to be the very presence of Jesus in San Francisco and the world. Given the emphasis on locality in our definition of the church, living out what it means to be a member is a local decision, gathered in community with others. A free floating "non-member" actually isn't a New Testament category.

This close and personal language is why City Church so strongly believes in the power of membership.  Membership in the church is not primarily for our benefit; it is an obedient response to the call of God, and in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, exists for the world and for others. Membership in the church is to make a commitment in community to give of your life, what Christ called "taking up our cross", knowing that paradoxically, it is precisely in giving up the pursuit of our own happiness and agenda that we find true life.

When we pray every week that God's "will be done, on earth as in heaven," we are actually praying a prayer that we must participate in. There is no back-up plan for making that happen other than us, the church, working with the movement of the Holy Spirit in our world. To become a member of a church is to commit to using your gifts in service of God's will where you are in community with others. It is to place a stake in your little corner of the earth and to work together to bring heaven to it.

The membership relationship between a person and a church is very much a two-way street. You open yourself up to letting church members and leaders speak into your life and, in turn, you agree to speak into theirs. You receive the care and support of the body as you seek to live out a life of faithfulness and return that care and support. You receive the grace of the body as you take three steps forward and two steps back in your spiritual journey and return that grace to others. And it is always done in harness with a community that is mutually committed to each other's spiritual vitality.

So, with all this (and much more) in mind, we invite you into this great adventure in the grand narrative of God and those God is gathering, making a home for God's work in this corner of San Francisco and around the world. We hope you'll join us.