Every Member is a Servant | A Three-Part Article Series | Part 1: Defining
Josh Pool
Brewing coffee each Sunday at 7:00am. Giving an elderly woman a ride home each week. Putting together the serving schedule for the nursery. Uploading song lyrics and sermon notes. Inviting new members over for dinner. Organizing meal trains and churchwide fellowships. Writing brief cards of encouragement. Leading a theology class or small group discussion. Teaching children. Keeping our church’s books each month.
Perhaps you already get my point. When we think about the ways our members serve one another, the list goes on for quite a while. I’ve barely scratched the surface. Some of it we see. Some of it we’ll never know. Regardless, I’m grateful to be a pastor who can scan our member directory and not have enough time to consider all the ways you serve. Thank you.
Why do CBC saints serve and do so well? Because every member is called and equipped by Christ to have a ministry in the local church. You may hear words like minister and ministry and think of the paid staff. But Paul sees ministry as the work of the saints. Christ has given the church its leaders in order to ‘equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’ (Eph 4.12). Ministry is the job of the congregation, not just its leaders.
As we look over the landscape of our little church, needs to serve abound. What a gift! Can you imagine the alternative?—A church without opportunities to serve—may it never be so among us! With increasing demand, and the regular addition of new members, many can feel the burden of growing needs. At the same time, others of us need to share more of the load.
To help us grow in this together, we’re sending out three short articles today, and over the next two weeks, to think carefully about what service is, what it isn’t, and how we can practically meet needs.
Defining Service: What is it?
What do we mean by serving in the local church? Here’s a start: Serving is maintaining our church’s unity by deploying our diversity of gifts for building up one another. We can break that sentence down:
(1) Serving one another starts with our unity. As believers reconciled to God in Christ, we have become fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph 2.19). Christ accomplished our unity. Now, as one body, Paul would tell us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (4.2-3). Christ has made you one; therefore, eagerly maintain it. How so?
(2) We maintain our unity by deploying our diversity of gifts. Though we are one body (4.4), grace was given to each one according to the measure of Christ’s gift (4.7). That is to say, Christ has given each one of his purchased people a spiritual gift.
We see this all throughout the NT. For example, 1 Cor 12.4-6 says, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. The point is, there is only one Spirit who dwells within us, but he gives each of us a variety of gifts. We’re united in our identity and diverse in our gifts. It’s unity expressed in diversity.
But for what purpose? This is what I’m going after. This Christ-bought unity that leads to a Spirit-given diversity of gifts is (3) for the building of the body of Christ (Eph 4.12). This is also Paul’s next line in 1 Cor 12.7: To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. He later turns this into a command, 14.12: So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. In each case the message is, God has given you gifts of his Spirit, so build up the body!
If we’re going to behold Christ together, every member will need to take up his God-given ministry among us. Brother or sister, the primary reason God has given you gifts, and even placed you in our congregation to begin with, is so that you might strengthen and mature your fellow church members. Your gifts are not for you. In fact, our most productive members are those who understand their role as meeting the needs of other people. You’re placed here by God to serve fellow precious saints with your gifts for their good. What a privilege!
Reflect
As we consider this, take a moment to reflect:
How has God used other members of CBC to strengthen and mature me? Who might you encourage and thank for how they regularly serve?
Who in our congregation am I intentionally helping to strengthen and mature?
Am I primarily a consumer of ministry or a producer in ministry?
Am I using my gifts for the common good of the body?
What opportunities has God already placed before me to build up another member even this week?
What’s up next?
I find that there’s something that often sneaks in and makes our serving less effective than it needs to be. That gets to my second point…how we misunderstand this topic. We need to debunk a couple of ways we misunderstand serving. Look for that article next Monday (June 22).