"Your 7 Job Responsibilities as a Church Member"

Did you know that you, as an ordinary church member (assuming you are a member), have responsibilities to your church body? I assume you do since Rod has just been preaching on how we, as members of Grace Church, agree to live out our commitments to Christ and his body. Here is a list of several responsibilities from Jonathan Leeman I found at the gospel coalition blog.

1. Attend church regularly (Hebrews 10:24-25)
2. Help preserve the gospel (Galatians 1:6)
3. Help affirm gospel citizens (ie. participating in affirming new member's profession of faith and exercising church discipline) (2 Cor. 2:6-8)
4. Attend member's meetings (this one really ties into points 1-3, read his article for more details)
5. Disciple other church members (Eph. 4:15-16)
6. Share the gospel with outsiders (2 Cor. 5:19b-20)
7. Follow your leaders (Eph. 4:12)

Leeman ends by writing what he says to those who are going to become a member of the church he is an elder at. It is helpful to remind us, who are so prone to individualism, of the collective responsibility we have for our local church family. Here is what he says,

Friend, by joining this church, you will become jointly responsible for whether or not this congregation continues to faithfully proclaim the gospel. That means you will become jointly responsible both for what this church teaches, as well as whether or not its members’ lives remain faithful. And one day you will stand before God and give an account for how you used this authority. Will you sit back and stay anonymous, doing little more than passively showing up for 75 minutes on Sundays? Or will you jump in with the hard and rewarding work of studying the gospel, building relationships, and making disciples? We need more hands for the harvest, so we hope you’ll join us in that work.

Life together is a serious, hard, and joyful thing. May God give us more of a vision for the calling we have within the church.