Membership or partnership?
At Generations Church, we have church membership, but we refer to those who have been called here and committed to fulfill God’s work here as “partners”. Why? It’s more than simple semantics… Members have rights while partners share responsibility. The idea of membership comes with a sense of paying dues in order to receive the goods and services that come with membership. Partnership, on the other hand, communicates that we are all rolling up our sleeves and are in this together. As a church, we partner together to fulfill God’s mission for our church–it’s a big job that requires all of us to use our individual gifts and work together.
For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12: 3-8 CSB
As followers of Jesus, we are part of God’s household (Ephesians 2:19) who gather and serve together in a specific place within the body of Christ. The Bible compares a healthy church to a healthy body: God designed individual parts of the body to work together. In the church, that looks like membership partners who are sacrificially committed and equipped to do the works of service that God has prepared ahead of time for us to do (Ephesians 2:10; 4:12). We hold our membership partners in high regard; we expect them to live as missionaries of the gospel in the world. God, in His sovereignty, placed us where we live so we can point people to Jesus (Acts 17:26-27).
Being a membership partner of Generations Church is really about being part of a family. We’re united because of our identity in Jesus – that’s expressed in the way we come together to help people find, follow, and serve Jesus. We believe that membership partners are committed to a life of responsibility and service. To that end, our pastors commit to leading and loving their partners well by providing sound teaching, counsel, prayer, encouragement, and opportunities to lead others.
We take partnership seriously. To begin the process of becoming a membership partner at Generations Church, we ask you to join us for Discover Generations class that will give you a peek behind the curtain at who we are and what we do. You can find the date and time of the next class by visiting gogenerationschurch.com/discovergen. Thanks for joining what God is doing at Generations Church!
