The delimma is how do we make people feel welcome and at the same time, have the close nit community we need that strives for purity and right relationships with God and others? The whole idea of members and guests is one that a club or business might use. The membership term from the Scriptures I find is the term used for a part of a human body. We instead, might as well call the "members," "the legs" or"the arms." But the word member was never meant to be used in a way that denoted the ones that were "in" or "out." Jesus always went to the disenfranchised, spent time with the outcast and stopped to talk with the unlovelies. Yet, today, we write into our bylaws and our programs a way to separate and divide.
Out of much prayer, we have come to the terms "friends" and "family." And if it were not for the fact that we live in a place where terms are required for our actual government documents and such, we would probably have no terms. This, of course would and still probably will lead to some of our brothers and sisters in other churches to call us "friends of sinners." But isn't that perfect? That is what Jesus was called!
Friends: The ones who have come to Journey alongside us, not necessarily joining the story of God.
Family: Those who have forsaken their own story for the story of God. And as in doing such have now chosen Jesus as their Master and thus have now apprenticed themselves to Him.
These are a few thoughts, as I still toy with these concepts, I am never finished exploring and discovering.
One more thought: "Treat friends as if they were family and treat family as if they were your friends."
-A thought my father-in-law had to add to the discussion as we discussed friends and family.
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