Partnership--The Glory of God on Display FINAL

Well good morning, Forest Glen! My name’s Dan Osborn and I serve as one of the Pastors over at the Near North location. It’s good to be with you this morning! If you’ve got a bible, open with me to . It’s on page 959 in the house bibles.

Dating vs. Married

The first conversation I ever had with the woman who would eventually become my wife was right after I hit her in the face with a Frisbee.

It was the second day of freshmen orientation and a group of us had gone over to Ohio Street Beach—right by Navy Pier—to play Ultimate Frisbee. And so here I am, trying to show off a little, I make this amazing throw…and it hit her right in the lip.

Within a couple of weeks we were spending quite a bit of time together…walking through the neighborhood, down into the Loop, and around Oak Street beach.

I loved that time with her! We had some of the best conversations early on and it was fun to experience the city for the first time together. But we weren’t ‘together’…we weren’t Facebook official or anything yet. We were just a guy and a girl who really enjoyed spend lots of time together on long walks and having meals together. I’m not sure how either of us could read into that situation!

And then it happened. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. We were sitting on a couch reading and she asked me a question.

“So where is this going?”

It’s called a DTR…a define the relationship conversation.

I froze.

Now we were young when we got engaged--21--but that engagement felt like an eternity! I didn't think it would ever come! And I'll be honest, one of the questions that came up pretty often for me, was something along the lines of, "what's really going to change between right now and a few months down the road? I mean, really? I don't think I'm going to love Courtney any more than I do right now--I couldn't image that to be the case. My feelings towards her aren't really going to change! Aren't we basically married already? Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?!

I loved what we had going on at the time! I knew eventually we’d need to get serious, but in the moment I really enjoyed thing the way they were! No pressure…Nothing formal…it was nice! But if we formalize this thing…how will that change things for me?! And so in that moment, as we’re sitting on the couch…I’m quite…looking back at Courtney…and quickly trying to articulate my thoughts…I froze!

But there was something I missed.

See, marriage is so much more than just the perks of having a spouse…and there really are perks!

It’s the loyalty and commitment of a healthy marriage. You are actually entering into a covenant before God which is a way of saying, ‘God, I’m asking YOU to hold me accountable to the promises I’m making today.’ And calling the people in attendance to hold you accountable for what is going on!

Why am I bringing this up?

Because I think it illustrates so well the kind of relationship many of us have with the church! Dating is nice because there’s no pressure…nothing formal…we’re still really in control! And if we were to have a DTR with the church…we’d freeze too.

Too many of us are stuck in this phase of dating the church—never getting series.

Too many of us remain in this phase of dating the church rather than being married to the church—and even if we’re married, the relationship might be rocky at best.

But in a loving marriage relationship, you are committed to the other person! You are committed to seeing them grow…to seeing them flourish…to seeing them do well! In a healthy marriage, you can’t view your spouse’s issues as their own! They become YOUR issues! You can’t

When it comes to the church…we have commitment problems.

Well, this morning, buckle up. We’re going to have that DTR.

How do I connect marriage to membership? In order for this to illustration to work, I need to make this connection strong. Part of what I need to do is make sure that people know what I’m talking about in this illustration. Is there a point when you get stuck in dating?

This morning we’re going to be talking about what it looks to commit to a local church.

The idea is church membership. And here’s what I want you to walk away with: every follower of Jesus should be a member at a local church.

Now if you’ve been at Park for any amount of time, that sounds like a very strange statement for me to make because we don’t talk about membership at all. Instead, we use the word partnership—and I’ll explain why in a moment—but it means the same thing.

Sot let me contextualize this idea for us: If you are a follower of Jesus at Park, you should be a partner at Park. A partner is that person who has made a commitment to join the church. They are the folks who call Park home!

But as soon as I said that, the first thought some of you had is that you can check-out from the rest of this message. So let me just say this to those of you who are already Partners at Park. You need to hear this message as reminder of the covenant you have made with this community! To be a Partner and then never think about it again would be like getting married and then never going back to think about your marriage!

Others of you are here this morning not sure what you believe about Christianity. I want you to hang in this morning because it’s my hope that as we talk about the church, you would see the church as the unique community to experience the belonging, love, and care you’re actually looking for!

Really, that is my hope for all of us, that we would leave this place ready to commit and contribute to this unique community of the People God in FOREST-GLEN/EDGEBROOK.

Sot let me contextualize this idea for us: If you are a follower of Jesus at Park, you should be a partner at Park. A partner is that person who has made a commitment to join the church. They are the folks who call Park home!

So I want you to stop dating this community and to move into a much deeper, more vibrant and life-giving relationship.

Ultimately what we’ll see this morning is that Partnership is more than just a good thing for us, it is a necessity for us!

Partnership is more than just a good thing for us, it is a necessity for us!

Give a sentence or two casting vision around Partnership. This will help draw people in to the necessity of answering these questions. Perhaps something like—no good reason NOT to be a partner. Partners are the people who are fully committed to the misison and vision of the church…Partners are those who call Park home and can back up that claim by investing in the community! A Partner is that person who has made a public commitment to join the church. They are the folks who call Park home, are all in, partnering with us in our mission to know God and make him known. Partners intentionally and regularly invest in our community.

So I want to spend our time this morning proving that to you. We’re gonna look at three crucial questions about membership/or partnership. Here they are

Thi

Is Church Membership/Partnership Biblical? You know, is this something we actually see taught in the bible or is it really just a modern organizational strategy?

If it’s Biblical, what does a church member/a Partner at Park do? Really we’re asking what does it look like to be a healthy Partner?

Finally, how do you become a Partner at Park?

Others of you are here this morning not sure what you believe about Christianity. I want you to hang in this morning because it’s my hope that as we talk about the church this morning, you would see the church as the unique community to experience the belonging you’re actually looking for!

And actually, that is my hope for all of us this morning, that we would leave this place ready to commit and contribute to this unique community of the People God in FOREST-GLEN/EDGEBROOK.

So, if you’re not there yet, open with me to .

Let me pray, and we’ll get started.

PRAY

This morning we’re talking about this idea of church membership.

Now let me ask you a question. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘membership’? It’s a pretty popular concept right now, isn’t it? I mean you’ve got: Costco membership, Netflix membership, Amazon Prime Membership, Gym membership, Club membership, etc. But what do all of these memberships have in common?

The perks! The benefits package! In fact, we can’t not think of benefits when we think of the word membership…after all there’s no such thing as a free membership. You’ve got to pay up, right? Yeah you can get a Jumbo Hotdog whenever you want…but you’ve got to pay $1.50 for it—or $1.70 if you’re in Cook County! You can get free 2 day shipping…as long as you pay $99 bucks a year! You can run on that treadmill whenever you’re ready…as long as you’ve paid your member dues! Yeah, you’ve got to pay for ‘em, but there are some nice perks to membership!

This morning we’re talking about this idea of church membership.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘membership’? It’s a pretty popular concept right now, isn’t it? I mean you’ve got: Costco membership, Netflix membership, Amazon Prime Membership, Gym membership, Club membership, etc. These are usually the things that come to mind first when we think about membership. But what do all of these memberships have in common?

Now let me ask you a question. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘membership’? It’s a pretty popular concept right now, isn’t it? I mean you’ve got: Costco membership, Netflix membership, Amazon Prime Membership, Gym membership, Club membership, etc. But what do all of these memberships have in common?

The perks! The benefits package! In fact, we can’t not think of benefits when we think of the word membership…after all there’s no such thing as a free membership. You’ve got to pay up, right? Yeah you can get a Jumbo Hotdog whenever you want…but you’ve got to pay $1.50 for it—or $1.70 if you’re in Cook County! You can get free 2 day shipping…as long as you pay $99 bucks a year! You can run on that treadmill whenever you’re ready…as long as you’ve paid your member dues! Yeah, you’ve got to pay for ‘em, but there are some nice perks to membership!

One of the things that makes a sermon on church membership so difficult is that there’s no single place you can go in the bible that says— ‘you should be a member’. So then why am I making such a big deal out of it? Because every book in the New Testament assumes that followers of Jesus are members of the local church.

Paul is writing a letter to a church in the Greek city of Corinth.

Let me show you a picture of where Corinth is…you can see it there as a port city. Paul is writing to them because he’s got to correct some misunderstandings about what it means to be Followers of Jesus.

In order to see what Paul is getting at here, we’re going to have to work backwards in text a bit.

Is Church Membership/Partnership Biblical? You know, is this something we actually see taught in the bible or is it really just a modern organizational strategy? Where does the idea membership come from in scripture?

Let me give you just a little bit of context. First Corinthians is a letter written by Paul to a church in the city of Corinth. He’d previously started a church in the city but after a few years he starts writing some letters to them because they’ve got some misconceptions about the church—what it is, how it functions—and so in this letter, we get a lot of good insight about

Let me show you a picture of where Corinth is…you can see it there as a port city. Paul is writing to them because he’s got to correct some misunderstandings about what it means to be Followers of Jesus.

Here’s the first question we need to look at this morning, is church membership…partnership...biblical?

It’s actually a difficult question to answer, because the bible never actually says, ‘You should be a member at a local church.’ So where do we even get this idea from?

is probably the place that most directly talks about membership. Paul actually uses the word member 11 times in Chapter 12. But it’s not until he gets to v. 27 that we actually get to the heart of what he’s saying about it. Look with me at . Paul says this, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Okay, let’s break this down a little bit.

He says you are the body of Christ. Who’s he talking to?

This is one of the greatest metaphors for the church. You know in this series, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about what the church is and what it looks like and there are a couple places in the New Testament where we get analogies of the church. Let me show you a couple of the different analogies the Bible uses to describe the church.

Remember, 1 Corinthians is a letter that Paul has written to a specific gathering of followers of Jesus in the city of Corinth. A few years before, he’d started this church…but they ran into some problems and so Paul wrote to them to help clear up some misconceptions they had about CHURCH.

This you is plural in the original language of the New Testament.

Remember, 1 Corinthians is a letter that Paul has written to a specific gathering of followers of Jesus in the city of Corinth. A few years before, he’d started this church…but they ran into some problems and so Paul wrote to them to help clear up some misconceptions they had about CHURCH.

In , Paul, the same author of 1 Corinthians, compares the church to a Bride—and talks about how Jesus has loved this church as if it was his Bride. This is one of them, that it’s the Body of Jesus. gives us another analogy--that the church is like a living house. And he makes the point that Jesus is the cornerstone that the rest of the bricks—you and are—built upon.

And so he says, ‘don’t you understand, YOU—collectively—together—as a church—are the body of Christ! We can’t miss this here, Paul is talking about a specific gathering of Followers of Jesus—what we would call a local church. So when he says, YOU, think Park Community Church: Forest Glen/Edgebrook. YOU ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Right from the beginning Paul sets up this metaphor to describe the church. He says it’s the Body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:12 ESV

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

But what Paul says here in 1 Corinthians, I think, is really the most descriptive picture of the church in the Bible—that the church is like the Body.

We looked at this last week, that God appoints leaders in the church in order to equip the church…FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Ephesians 5:23 ESV

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

And it’s a powerful metaphor isn’t it? Because the implication is that if church is Jesus’ body…then the church really represents Jesus to the rest of the world!

Colossians 1:18 ESV

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Eph 5:

Ephesians 5:30 ESV

because we are members of his body.

And it’s really is a powerful metaphor isn’t it? Because the implication is that if church is Jesus’ body…then the church really represents Jesus to the rest of the world!

Eph 5:30

Col

That’s a sobering reality when you actually think about it.

SLOW DOWN

That means people here in this neighborhood will have their thoughts and beliefs about who Jesus is, what he’s done, and what He’s like largely based on what this community does and how you live out obedience to God!

What does this have to do with ‘membership’?

Look at the second half of v. 27, “…[you are] individually members of it.”

Here’s where we get this idea of membership from in the bible…it’s from Paul’s metaphor of the church as the Body of Christ. If the church is the Body, then those who make up the church are members of the body!

Now Paul is not saying something super unique here. In fact, to talk about people as parts of a whole was a very familiar metaphor back in the day.

But here’s the problem—what Paul means by member easily gets lost in translation.

Let me show you what I mean.

Let me ask you a question.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘member’?

PAUSE

How many of you just thought about Costco? Membership in our context means something very different! You’ve Netflix membership, Amazon Prime Membership, Gym membership, etc. And this is one of the most challenging parts with talking about church membership because ALL OF US already have something in mind when we hear the word member!

These are usually the things that come to mind first when we think about membership. But what do all of these memberships have in common?

But take one step further, when these are the things we think of with the word membership, what else are we thinking about?

The benefits package!

The Perks!

In fact, we can’t not think of benefits when we think of the word membership…after all there’s a reason you pay for your membership, right?

You can get a Jumbo Hotdog whenever you want for $1.50 —or $1.70 in Cook County…as long as you pay the $55 dollars for the Costco card!

You can get free 2 day shipping…as long as you pay $99 bucks a year! You can run on that treadmill whenever you’re ready…as long as you’ve paid your member dues! None of us is coming into this conversation with a blank slate—when we hear membership, we immediately start thinking about a club we join and the perks we get. On top of that, we really are in control of our membership, aren’t we? I mean we can do with it what we want…can utilize it when we want!

And I’m not saying that kind of thinking is wrong…but when we’re talking about membership with a church…if our minds go there…we radically miss the point of what Paul’s saying.

And that might sound obvious but if we’re honest, this idea bleeds right over into what we think about church membership. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment…how often do we rate the church according to its benefits package. And you know you’re doing this when you look for your favorite kind of music…you’re style of teaching…the activities/programs/ministries that you want. If the church is artsy enough for you…or if it’s traditional enough for you’re tastes. And very quickly AND subtly we can slip into this benefits package mentality, we reveal our belief that the church should meet our standards!

But, friends, this is not at all what Paul has in mind when he talks about membership!

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment…how often do we rate the church according to its benefits package. And you know you’re doing this when you look for your favorite kind of music…you’re style of teaching…the activities/programs/ministries that you want. And see when we have the benefits package mentality, we betray our belief that the church should meet our standards and liking! But this is not at all what Paul has in mind when he talks about membership!

When he uses the word member is not a social word…it’s not about a club or program—it’s medical word! He’s talking about it in this metaphor for church as a Body, and so when he says followers of Jesus are members of the body, he’s talking about limbs…organs…body-parts right?! And that’s a totally different idea! When you’re talking about limbs, it’s no longer about benefits! Membership is about our spiritual health and survival!

Paul says here the church is the Body of Christ and you, individually, are members of that body! This is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus—that you are a member of the Body of Christ! See, the reason there’s not place in the bible that says ‘you should be a member of a local church’ is because it’s assumed that you already are! It’s the norm! It’s a necessary part of being a follower of Jesus.

And this is really the reason why, at Park, we use a different word to talk about this idea of membership. With all this cultural baggage we have connected to the idea of MEMBERSHIP, we think its helpful to a different word that communicates the same idea, but in a way that makes a little more sense. We use the word Partnership. It forces us to reframe the conversation! It comes from what Paul says in , where he thanks these people for their partnership in the Gospel. So nobody is member at Park, they are a partner at Park. But it means the same thing.

And this is really the reason

Now it’s not like we just picked a random word to use! We get the word Partnership from what Paul also says in another one of his letters. Look with me at on the screen behind me. He says, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now.” And at the heart of it, this is really why we have landed on the word Partner/Partnership instead of member/membership…because when Paul uses it here, it’s in the context of continuing the work of the Gospel together…it communicates the unity with more clarity than member does in our context today.

And that’s actually a complicated question

It’s actually a difficult question to answer, because there’s really nowhere in the bible that straight up says, ‘You should be a member at a local church.’

Look with me at . It says this, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Paul really has two main thoughts here, and the first is this idea of the ‘Body of Christ’. What’s he mean?

1 Corinthians 12:27 ESV

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

This is one of the greatest metaphors for the church. You know in this series, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about what the church is and what it looks like and there are a couple places in the New Testament where we get analogies of the church. Let me show you a couple of the different analogies the Bible uses to describe the church.

In , Paul, the same author of 1 Corinthians, compares the church to a Bride—and talks about how Jesus has loved this church as if it was his Bride. This is one of them, that it’s the Body of Jesus. gives us another analogy--that the church is like a living house. And he makes the point that Jesus is the cornerstone that the rest of the bricks—you and are—built upon.

But what Paul says here in 1 Corinthians, I think, is really the most descriptive picture of the church in the Bible—that the church is like the Body.

Now Paul is not saying something super unique here. In fact, to talk about people as parts of a whole was a very familiar metaphor back in the day.

Finally, like I said earlier, while you can’t find any single passage of scripture that explicitly mandates partnership, there are many practices for the church in the New Testament that are really impossible without it!

One of the questions that comes up pretty often is: ‘Why do we use the word Partner and not Member if that’s what the bible uses?’

This is a great question! We use the word Partner for a couple reasons.

Practical Questions

Leadership in the church is a huge place you see this. Remember last week, Brenton talked about the roles of Pastors and Elders and how they are called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Without any identifiable partners, then who are are the Pastors/Elders leading and who is called to submit to their leadership? See, the

Another place you see this is with the practice of church discipline. I know we don’t really talk about discipline, but even Jesus brings up the idea in , that if there is someone in the church who refuses to repent of a sin pattern in their life, they should be excluded from the community…but again, this can only be done if the person is an identifiable partner in the community!

And we also know that the churches Paul was working with, they began to keep lists of people who were part of the fellowship ().

But let’s keep reading what Paul has to say about this idea of partnership in the rest of this passage, and it’s quite clever what Paul does because he makes some pretty obvious statements about a healthy body, but in a way that points to some real issues we might have!

Look with me at v. 14, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”

I know it’s obvious, but Paul starts off this section talking about the fact the body is actually made up of different kinds of parts! That God designed the body with different members for a reason! Friends, think about this for a moment—that means maybe the guy who you get supper frustrated with in small group is NOT a thorn in your flesh, but in the body, your right hand! And before we just get fed up with someone, we need to learn to ask, ‘God how are you using this person in the body in a way that I just don’t see right now?’ Just because we might be annoyed by someone else in the church does not therefore mean one of us needs to go…it just might be the very reason you BOTH need to be there!

Look what Paul says in v. 15, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less part of a the body! And if the ear should say, “Because I am not not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

When I first came on staff at Park, I was at another location and there was this guy there who would regularly give me feedback after I would do anything on stage…whether I wanted it or not! He was always asking me to think just a little bit differently on whatever topic I was talking about. And at first it was just frustrating to know that I was going to get an email from him after every sermon or class he heard me teach…and sometimes he’d have some good thoughts in there, but you know what I realized…that I needed his feedback because I wasn’t aware of blinders that I had on in my own thinking! So I started to bring him in on my sermon prep process…sometimes just to test the waters to see what he’d bite on, but more often than not, I walked away from those meetings with an insight that I’d never seen before…all because he was different than me! It wasn’t easy, but it helped. And I’m incredibly grateful for his influence still at Park!

Let’s keep reading at t v. 15, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less part of a the body! And if the ear should say, “Because I am not not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?”

Look with me starting at v. 15 and Paul is still playing of this body metaphor he says, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less part of a the body! And if the ear should say, “Because I am not not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?”

As a side note: I think it’s safe to say that this works the other way too, ‘the foot cannot say to the hand, “because you are not a foot, you do not belong to the body...”

Why?

V. 17, ‘...If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?”

See, there is something about the way that God has wired each one of us differently that when we are together, we serve a greater purpose!

Think about it for a moment. Your body is made up of very different parts, but they all play a vital role in the health of the body, even if you don’t fully recognize it, right?

Diversity

PAUSE

You know, what’s interesting when you look at all the places Paul goes in to detail about the body of Christ, he also always brings up two things—spiritual gifts and love.

And the idea that Paul is trying to get across is that each partner…each member has something unique to contribute to the rest of the body! One of the things this means is that diversity in the Body of Christ is essential…it’s not just a goal, it’s a necessity for us! Every church needs people think just a little bit differently than we do! We are missing something when we don’t have people who think, look, and act differently than we do! When I first came on staff at Park, I was at another location and there was this guy there who would regularly give me feedback after I would do anything on stage…whether I wanted it or not! He was always asking me to think just a little bit differently on whatever topic I was talking about. And at first it was just frustrating to know that I was going to get an email from him after every sermon or class he heard me teach…and sometimes he’d have some good thoughts in there, but you know what I realized…that I needed his feedback because I wasn’t aware of blinders that I had on in my own thinking! So I started to bring him in on my sermon prep process…sometimes just to test the waters to see what he’d bite on, but more often than not, I walked away from those meetings with an insight that I’d never seen before…all because he was different than me! It wasn’t easy, but it helped. And I’m incredibly grateful for his influence still at Park!

When you are a partner here, you are committing to invest what God has given you for the sake of others.

When you are a partner here, you are committing to invest what God has given you for the sake of others. You are choosing to use your gifts for the benefit of the rest of the body, looking to meet their needs and their concerns. As a partner, you are in a community of people who have made a covenant to care for each other, to challenge each other, and to…

Spiritual gifts are those things the Holy Spirit empowers you to do. We’re going to look closer at spiritual gifts in a couples weeks, but what we need to know here is that it’s IN the body that God calls you to use your gifts. As a partner, you are part of a community of people who have made a covenant to care for each other, to challenge each other, to serve each other, to love each other—that’s why RIGHT after he talks about being members of the body, Paul goes into the famous love chapter—the section thats read at almost every wedding! His point is that this love is thing that is supposed to MARK the body of Christ! It’s how we relate to each other!

Paul says partnership is for the good of the body.

We’re in the game together and Paul gives us a beautiful picture of what that means in v. 26, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” As a partner, what happens to one of us, happens to all of us! Friends, the church—the body of Christ is the profound, unique community of the People of God! And when you’re a partner, you’re living into THIS community in the way God intended for you! For your good and for the good of the body!

As a partner, you are in a community of people who have made a covenant to care for each other, to challenge each other, to serve each other, to love each other and to…God has placed you in a unique position to serve, care, encourage, lead, or teach the body!

When you are a partner you are living into a community in the way God intended for you! For your good and for the good of the body!

And the idea that Paul is trying to get across is that each partner…each member has something unique to contribute to the rest of the body! One of the things this means is that diversity in the Body of Christ is essential…it’s not just a goal, it’s a necessity for us! Every church needs people think just a little bit differently than we do! We are missing something when we don’t have people who think, look, and act differently than we do! When I first came on staff at Park, I was at another location and there was this guy there who would regularly give me feedback after I would do anything on stage…whether I wanted it or not! He was always asking me to think just a little bit differently on whatever topic I was talking about. And at first it was just frustrating to know that I was going to get an email from him after every sermon or class he heard me teach…and sometimes he’d have some good thoughts in there, but you know what I realized…that I needed his feedback because I wasn’t aware of blinders that I had on in my own thinking! So I started to bring him in on my sermon prep process…sometimes just to test the waters to see what he’d bite on, but more often than not, I walked away from those meetings with an insight that I’d never seen before…all because he was different than me! It wasn’t easy, but it helped. And I’m incredibly grateful for his influence still at Park!

But here's the thing, you know what I did with all those parts? NOTHING! Because a DISC DRIVE BY ITSELF IS USELESS! You can't do anything with it! It's only beneficial, when it was connected to the rest of the computer! In fact, the ONLY way it could do what it was created to do was if it was connected to the rest of the computer! Friends, this is the idea of partnership...as followers of Jesus, you and I function best when we are connected to the rest of the body! This is exactly why the idea of a lone-wolf Christian is an utterly foreign idea to the writers of the New Testament. Why would you want to be on your own? You are at your best, making your strongest contribution, and truly living out how God has uniquely wired you when you are connected to the rest of the body!

When you are a partner you are living into THIS community in the way God intended for you! For your good and for the good of the body!

So it makes complete sense why Paul says in v. 21, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you!”

The second thing Paul says is that partnership is for our personal, spiritual health. Look with me at v. 21, “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have not need of you.”

Why?

If it’s Biblical, what does a church member/a Partner at Park do? Really we’re asking what does it look like to be a healthy Partner? What is expected of a Partner?

Because an eye by itself is useless! It cannot do what was intended to do! Friends, it cannot survive.

Think about what happens if you loose a limb…the body will take a hit, but it will survive…the LIMB won’t! The same is true for us! We will not make it! There is no such thing as a lone-wolf Christian!

But let me ask you another question. The idea of partnership is definitely biblical, but what does a partner do?

At Park, we have requirements for Partnership.

I know as soon as I say the word requirement some of you check out because it seems too formal, but let me just say this. We don’t require anything more than what the New Testament says every Follower of Jesus should already be doing! So you don’t just tell Brenton/Joel that you’d like to be a partner and then get put on a list of partners here, there are some things that need to be true of you before you can become a partner!

To be a partner, you need to be baptized. Why? Because baptism is the public declaration that you have been transformed by the Gospel! It’s the way you publically declare, “I’m In!”

To be a partner you have to be actively serving within the community—actively meaning at least once a month on the connections team, productions team, students and kids teams or as a small group leader!

You need to be in a small group at Park. Why? Because small groups are the best way to experience community with a core group of people who know you, can challenge you, and walk with you week in and week out in your life!

To be a partner you need to be actively giving of your financial resources. Now let me say this…giving is NOT member dues…you’re not buying in to the church with giving! We don’t say partners need to give a certain amount! But friends, being generous with our resources is part of being a follower of Jesus!

Finally, partners need to be willing to submit to their pastors and elders. We looked at this last week—how God has given the church Elders to lead. Submission does not mean you blindly agree with everything! Not at all! Actually, as a partner it’s your role to speak up if you think there is an issue! But what it does mean is that you are not working to intentionally cause division in the body! That means no anti-Brenton small groups just because you’re upset with him!

And again, it might sound odd to have requirements around partnership. But think of it this way—a Partner is a picture of a spiritually healthy person! Not a perfect person, but someone committed to living in a way consistent with what the bible teaches and you are making a covenant to actively engage in the life of this community! Friends, could you imagine what this place would look like if every person here said, ‘I’m ALL IN!’ I mean what would God do in this neighborhood with a church like that?!

This is why Paul goes on to say in v. 21, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you!”

Why?

A body-part by itself is useless.

Why?

Because an eye by itself is useless! It cannot do what was intended to do! Friends, it cannot survive.

Think about what happens if you loose a limb…the body will take a hit, but it will survive…the LIMB won’t! The same is true for us! We will not make it! There is no such thing as a lone-wolf Christian!

Finally, like I said earlier, while you can’t find any single passage of scripture that explicitly mandates partnership, there are many practices for the church in the New Testament that are really impossible without it!

I could tell you many stories and so could Brenton of people who come to us feeling stalled in the spiritual lives, and the reason is because they’ve been on the fringes of community! They’ve been dating the church!

Leadership in the church is a huge place you see this. Remember last week, Brenton talked about the roles of Pastors and Elders and how they are called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Without any identifiable partners, then who are are the Pastors/Elders leading and who is called to submit to their leadership? See, the

Another place you see this is with the practice of church discipline. I know we don’t really talk about discipline, but even Jesus brings up the idea in , that if there is someone in the church who refuses to repent of a sin pattern in their life, they should be excluded from the community…but again, this can only be done if the person is an identifiable partner in the community!

And we also know that the churches Paul was working with, they began to keep lists of people who were part of the fellowship ().

You see, when you put this together with what Paul says about partnership in 1 Cor. 12, his point really begins to pop: that followers of Jesus flourish when they partner together! Followers of Jesus flourish when they are together in the body, and not only that, but the CHURCH flourishes!

PAUSE

We are at our best, thriving as God intends us to, when we are an active partner of the Body of Christ—the local church! Friends, it’s this kind of community that everyone is desperately looking for! A community marked by Love, like Paul talks about…a community where we can live as we’ve been created to live! Everybody wants to flourish!

So is Partnership biblical? Absolutely! And it’s for our joy, our good, our protection.

We flourish when we Partner together in the local church!

Pause

But if that’s true, for many of us, why does it feel like we don’t have that experience with the church?

Why?

Because an eye by itself is useless! It cannot do what was intended to do! Friends, it cannot survive.

Think about what happens if you loose a limb…the body will take a hit, but it will survive…the LIMB won’t! The same is true for us! We will not make it! There is no such thing as a lone-wolf Christian!

Why is it that many of us are still resistant to partnership?

Friends, I want to say this in love. Some of us have never moved passed dating the church. And when it comes time for us to define the relationship, we freeze because we begin to get clarity on what a deeper relationship will require of us and what we might need to give up!

You know, a funny thing happens when you transition from dating to marriage. Suddenly, everything you thought was yours is now shared by someone else. Your time—it’s not just yours anymore. Your bank account—merged! Your schedule changes! Your life plans will change! And many of you know this, it’s hard! I still haven’t really learned how to really share my calendar with Courtney!

This kind of commitment requires sacrifice on our end.

You see, the reason we get stuck here is because dating the church is safer…it’s not as much of a risk. We don’t ever have to really open ourselves up and we are never have to be vulnerable with one another!

Dating the church is safe because when we’re at a safe distance, we maintain control of ourselves.

We might even be giving money to the church...

But the real tell is looking at your motivation behind these things. Doing them just because there’s some vague sense you’re ‘supposed to’…but it’s never done because you find joy in it!

Dating the church means we can be quick to criticize because end the end of the day, we know it’s someone else whose going to have to fix the problem, not us!

Dating the church means we are looking for our benefits package and when they don’t satisfy our needs…well there are just more fish in the sea!

And yet when we remain in the place—of keeping the community at a safe distance, perpetually dating and dancing around the DTR, we inevitably fail to ever experience the profound and unique community God intends for us in the church!

You see, at the end of the day, partnership is so much more than joining a club or subscribing to a service. It’s the act of laying down my life for the sake of others! It’s hard because it requires more than we’re willing to give! But this is exactly why partnership is so important, because when a community is able to come together in this unique way, it’s actually a picture of the Gospel! Friends, don’t you see that at the end of the day, this is really the power behind Paul’s metaphor of the church as the Body of Christ! It’s because when the members…the partners come together in this sacrificial way, it highlights the unique reconciling power of the Gospel!

How does the Gospel empower us to stop dating the church?

See, the Gospel shows us, that unlike us, Jesus did not just date the church. In fact, he demonstrated his profound commitment to the church, by taking all our failures, brokenness…our SIN upon himself as if it was his OWN!

On the cross, in love, he died the death we should have died! And yet was raised again from the dead with the promise and hope that when we put our trust in Jesus, we can have full forgiveness, and new life!

See it’s the gospel that actually frees us from perpetually dating the church! We can be committed Because Jesus was first committed to us!

The Gospel empowers us to genuine step in to this role of a partner…and everything we’re called to do as partners is something Jesus has first done for us!

We can serve because the Gospel says Jesus first served us!

As followers of Jesus, we can be abundantly generous…we can give...because Jesus was first generous with us—giving his very life for us!

In the Gospel we can submit to our leaders, because Jesus was first submissive to the Father in the garden on the eve of His death—saying ‘Not my will, but Yours be done!’!

See, this whole idea of partnership is idealistic until we see that it’s only the Gospel that has the power to make it a reality!

Friends, Jesus gave His life for the church so that we could live ours IN the church!

Amen?!

If it’s Biblical, what does a church member/a Partner at Park do? Really we’re asking what does it look like to be a healthy Partner? What is expected of a Partner?

Park Requirements for Partnership

Now

I know when I even say the word requirement some of you are already about check out of this conversation because it just seems too formal or official, but let me just say this. We don’t require anything more than what the New Testament says every Follower of Jesus should already be doing!

The big thing to keep in mind here is that what we call our Partners to be doing is exactly what the New Testament calls every follower of Jesus to be a part of!

Follower of Jesus

This means you’re NOT a free agent!

Finally, how do you become a Partner at Park? What is the process like? Why is it so serious—why do I need to sign a piece of paper to make this official? What should I expect in becoming a Partner? What’s my next step?

Let’s close with this question, ‘How do I become a Partner?’

Some of you know that for too long you’ve been dating the church…yes you’ve been involved—in fact you may already be doing all the things we require for Partnership! But you just haven’t made that public commitment to the church yet. Well, your very next step is to take the Partnership class!

The class is really for anyone who’d like to know in more detail what it would mean for you to join this specific community and it’s a great chance to ask questions!

Here at EB, you have an opportunity to take a partnership class right after this gathering is over! It’s about an hour long.

Your next partnership class is from on Nov. 5th...And in the class, Joel will go into much more detail about what it this specific church and what it looks like to be a partner and how you can uniquely serve in the Body!

Look, I know we’re all busy…but I hope this morning you’ve seen that Partnership is so much more than just some requirements…or an organizational strategy. Partnership is about our spiritual health and the health of the church!

Forest Glen/Edgbrook will be a spiritually healthy church, when it’s made up of spiritually healthy people…and that is the heart behind Partnership!

Friends, Followers of Jesus Flourish when we partner together—the Body of Christ flourishes when we partner together! And when the People of God partner together, it puts the Glory of God on Display.

And when the People of God partner together, it puts the Glory of God on Display.

Would you Pray with me?

Partnership--The Glory of God on Display FINAL

Introduction: Marriage and Big Idea

Exposition of the Text

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Context of 1 Corinthians

Is Church Membership Biblical?

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You, together, are the Body of Christ.

Not a social word, but an medical word

Membership IS Partnership

Membership IS Partnership

Reframe the Conversation

Partnership Makes Sense of New Testament Teachings

You, together, are the Body of Christ.

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Not a Social Word!

An Anatomical Word!

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It allows us to reframe the conversation.

Church Leadership

Practical Questions

Church Discipline

Lists of Believers

Partnership is for the good of the Body and Us!

Partnership is for the good of the Body (, )

Diversity

Spiritual Gifts:

Partnership is for the our personal, spiritual health ()

What is Does a ‘Healthy’ Partner look like?

No Lone-Wolf

Accountability

Partnership Makes Sense of New Testament Teachings

Church Leadership

Church Discipline

Climax: Partnership is for our Good, our Joy, and Protection!

Lists of Believers

Climax: Partnership is for our Good, our Joy, and Protection!

Human Condition: Many of us end up dating the Church

Gospel Resolution:

Gospel Resolution: Jesus died because of our imperfections

How do I Become a Partner?

What is Does a ‘Healthy’ Partner look like?

Park Requirements for Partnership

Follower of Jesus

Believer’s Baptism

Actively Serving

Actively Giving

Active in Community

Submission to Leaders

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Why Should I Become a Partner?

How do I Become a Partner?

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Edgebrook Class

Forest Glen Class

Application

Conclusion