Institutional Members versus Relational Members

Continuing yesterday's conversation . . .

we have new members joining this month although they've been members for a while now. What I mean is that some of them will choose institutional membership (making public professions of Christian faith, adding their names to church rolls) in addition to their current membership (having relationships with each other and God through our particular congregation.)

Like many churches, we have institutional members whom we barely know.

And we have relational members whom we know well but - for a variety of reasons - they don't care about voting in meetings, holding elective office, having their names on lists in registers.

And we have members who are both.

There are still some people whose names are on our church records as "members" but almost nobody knows them. They participate maybe once a year, stopping to check in with me as they leave the morning worship service to catch up briefly. Sometimes they never connect with anyone but the pastor. Sometimes they fall through the cracks and nobody notices they are not participating.

I don't care anymore how many institutional members we have. People still ask, "How big is your church" as if saying "1000 members!" would so impress them, even if they were members in name only.

I care very much that we have as many relational members as possible. That would be the point. We want people to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We want people to have relationships with each other.

If we get big enough, they can't all have personal relationships with the pastor (and sometimes they leave the church because of that.) I love it when I see other people connecting, knowing each other's issues, caring about each others LSATs, grandchildren, tonsilectomies, adoption plans, gluten intolerance, sick sister, new puppy, fertility treatments.

This is the church: We grapple with life's issues together in the context of faith. But we have to know each other's life issues in order to grapple, or else church is quite the solitary endeavor.

I can do solitary church alone on my sofa. But then I would miss experiencing the community that cares about TBC's college applications along with me, that pools resources with me to support J. doing mission work in Australia and B. whose house burned down last month, that asks me how things are going now that M. has moved to Pittsburgh, that visits homebound members and takes them communion with chunks of bread from the morning's sacrament. This is the church that supports each other personally so that we can be the church beyond the walls of the building.

I believe people want this. They don't care about having their names on a list somewhere unless it's a list that good friends can call if there's a problem or a great piece or news to share.

A woman joined for worship us last Sunday evening after the dinner, after the message, after the prayers, after communion. She got lost or something and by the time she arrived, we were posing for pictures in the "photo booth" left over from the previous night's Halloween Party. From the photo above, you'll never guess which one she is, because she looks like she belongs. And she does. Our newest member.

Photo of Sunday evening worship with assorted members posing as pirates for no apparent reason. Only 5 of these people can actually vote in an official meeting of the congregation. The others are happy trying to figure out how our faith and life connect. And posing for silly pictures.