In smaller churches people often wear a lot of hats. They take off their greeter hat and don their nursery hat. Or they take off their praise team hat and put on their children's ministry hat. And if we don't carefully monitor our involvement, we won't have the bandwidth for all our church commitments. When this happens, people tend to lose the joy of being involved in a worshiping community. As John Maxwell put it, "Their attitude loses altitude."
Anecdotally, many pastor friends tell me that people are reluctant to make a formal commitment to church membership these days. It seems like it to me. That means fewer volunteers doing more things. Pretty soon people are wearing a ridiculous amount of hats. They have so many hats in fact that their heads are spinning.
Church membership is very important because it means that we have made ourselves accountable to others who are extending the trust of local church ministry to us. I have shared with our church that buying a large appliance probably requires as much actual time on the front end as becoming a member of our church. And it is a worthwhile investment of ourselves because after all, we are talking about ultimate and eternal matters.
On a very practical level, if you do not become a church member, needs for greeters, teachers, nursery workers, children's volunteers, and all the very basic ministries necessary for a functioning local church cannot happen, or they cannot happen with appropriate JOY, which matters very much!
So my challenge to you is this: if you are a follower of Jesus, join a local church and get involved so somebody else can wear fewer hats and experience more joy.
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