A church is fundamentally a covenantal community, founded on the belief that promises power passion, and not the other way around. This is the last in our series on the promises that we make to one another as we join the church. See others in the series here.
“Q: In loving obedience, do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of this church, promising to seek the peace, purity, and prosperity of this congregation as long as you are a member of it?”
Once on a church mission trip in Louisiana doing hurricane relief, our group was forced to sleep in a bunkhouse with two other groups from different parts of the country. After a long day of building houses, clearing rubble, and hauling it away, we were ready to sack out. Unfortunately, our newfound traveling companions were asleep before us, which wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the snoring. I remember lying awake in the middle of the night, listening to what sounded like two lawn mowers running over tambourines on a tin roof, when one member of the other group shot up in bed and screamed, “PLEASE, JUST BREATHE THROUGH YOUR EARS!”
Apparently this is possible.
This membership question is an attempt to help us be good traveling companions to one another, on the journey from where and who we are now to that day when we see Jesus as he really is, when the new heavens and the new earth are revealed to us (Revelation 21). It spells out that the government of this church (known as the elders of the Session) will, as their mission, invite us to do three things:
1. Seek peace. Peace is not the absence or cessation of conflict. Instead, it is the deep, abiding intimacy that comes from truly knowing your brothers and sisters in Christ. Peace takes time to cultivate; it takes grace, as we learn to bear with one another. It takes courage, to keep from running from one another. Sometimes, it takes humility, as we learn to “breathe through our ears” so that we don’t keep one another awake.
2. Seek purity. Purity invites us not to avoid one another, but that we strive to be instruments of God’s healing and holiness for our fellow traveling companions. We are involved in one another’s lives, not for the sake of being busybodies, but because relationship with the body of Christ is one of the ways in which God crafts us into the image of his Son.
3. Seek prosperity. Seeking prosperity means that we long for our group to succeed in the pursuit of its kingdom mission. As members of this church, we serve in its ministries and missions, not those of other churches, as valuable as they may be. When (not “if”) our church is deficient in some area, we strive to improve it, rather than consuming a better product at a different church like we are in the buffet line at Ryan’s.