The church is pretty unique.

This group of Jesus followers, in all their shapes and sizes, practises and policies, who make up the church are quite unlike anything else that exists. Externally the church gets compared to any group or gathering of people, whether that is the golf club, rotary club, knitting group, sports team etc. but doing so ignores what it is really about.

What’s got me really thinking about this has been a debate that has been going on within the English football leagues which has caused a whole lot of controversy. I’ll not go through the details here but the overwhelming statement I heard over and over again was that “football is for the fans” and therefore the fans must come first.

This sentiment is similar with the other examples I listed. The local golf club exists for its members, every piece of activity it undertakes is trying to better things for its members. Easy.

The church is different.

The church isn’t about the members, the members are the church. Those members haven’t come together to play golf, knit or whatever the goal in the other clubs are. They come together to collectively lay their lives down and worship Jesus. Being the church or as we often say ‘going to church’ isn’t about the members, it’s about Jesus.

Unfortunately we have too often missed that.

We have taken this ‘membership first’ approach that is prevalent in the other clubs that we are a part of and we have applied it to church. We too often come not to lay our lives down but to build our lives up. We hope that the service aspect of ‘church’ it will form around our preferences and that it looks the way we want to.

As we move forward into this new phase of the church let’s ensure that we never lose that. Let’s not turn it into a members first organisation and let’s remember that we are not our own. The church is the bride of Christ, He lay down His life and now we submit and come under His vision for us. Ironically when we do that our lives do get built up. Why? Because Jesus!

Let’s keep being unique.