[0:00]
G'day, I'm Scott Sanders and welcome to the Reach Australia podcast. The vision of Reach Australia is to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches across Australia. Now we've just finished the Reach Australia National Conference. It was a great time to gather together as church leaders, with our team members, to meet up with other people to really push into this big vision of seeing the lost one all across Australia. This episode is an ecosystem workshop called In Community.

[0:30]
And in it, you'll hear Tony Payne, who works at UNSW at Campus Bible Study, and Tim Clemens, who's the lead pastor at Grace City Church in Inner City, Sydney. My name is Tim Clemens, and I led the team that started Grace City Church back in 2015. So just recently turned seven. I kind of only discovered that on the Sunday and I sort of was preaching at 6pm and thought, hey, by the way.

[1:02]
Anyway, so that sort of passed without much fanfare. But Tony has really helpfully explored some of the theological concepts of membership, community, belonging. What I want to do now, as he's suggested, is try and think through how these concepts work themselves out practically in the life of our churches. I will try not to be just the practical hack after we hear the theology early on. I really will try.

[1:32]
But it's worth just saying a couple of things up front. The first is, if you're here as someone who is particularly responsible for overseeing or championing the process of integration and welcoming people into the life of your church, I would love to encourage you to check out a resource. two or three years ago in 2019 at the first Reach Australia conference, Amy Townsend and I ran a seminar on that topic. It was three hours long as opposed to two hours. And the focus of

[2:04]
that seminar was a little narrower, really focusing in on integration. And so you can, if you go on the Reach Australia website, those seminars are there. We also put it together in a course, which you can get on Church in a Box. Just type in Church in a Box, community and integration, that's there. So if some of my material, you've never heard before our material, and that's your area, I strongly recommend you go and check that out. I think

[2:35]
it's very helpful if I'm allowed to say that. Today, we'll have a degree of overlap with some of that stuff. So it's not all brand new, but most of it is new and designed to help us really explore how the concepts that Tony has just talked through work themselves out in the life of our churches. So the second thing just to really highlight for you, two things that Tony's just told us, which I want to emphasize. First of all, membership, community, belonging, they're all

[3:06]
slightly different terms, but yes, they overlap. And so when we now are going to separate them, It's somewhat simplistic and manufactured. I think that's okay if we know what we're doing. The second thing is Tony's helped us to see sometimes the words, the way that we use words don't always neatly map onto the way that the Bible uses those words. So if we talk about a membership course, we're helpfully seeing. That's slightly different to what Tony's just explored under membership.

[3:37]
Now, again, I don't think that's a problem as long as we know what we're doing. problems for us, but if we're aware of what we're doing, I think that's just the first important step. So with that in mind, I do want to push on and explore how each of the contexts that Tony has explored or how each of those concepts map onto the life of our churches and what we can do as church leaders to facilitate them. So we'll go same order, membership, community, belonging. First of all, membership.

[4:10]
Now, part of what I want to do under the next heading is explore the context in which we live out the obligations of our members, membership in the body of Christ that is our local church. Under this heading, though, I want to explore the concept of membership as a step in a larger integration pathway. See, I think one of the most foundational structures that any church can have is some kind of discipleship or integration pathway.

[4:41]
That is, you've got some way that you are actively seeking to help people in your church go from non-Christian through each of the relevant steps to mature disciple and then maturing in an ever and ongoing way. Now, there's plenty of examples out there. three that I at least am aware of. The first is, if you guys can help me out, this is taking, give us the next one, is the connect, grow, serve, go approach. The next one as well, thanks,

[5:14]
is the engage, evangelize, establish, equip one. And then the last one would be community, the crowd, congregation committed core. Now, they're not the only pathways out there. You might know of others. You might use others. And each of them, frankly, have different strengths and weaknesses. But at the end of the day, which pathway you decide to use is less important than you actually have one.

[5:45]
But the main point in raising the concept of an integration pathway is to highlight the fact that I think it's helpful if you have some kind of membership moment relatively early on in your pathway. See, Tony's just helped us to say theologically, when you become a believer, you are united to Christ by the Spirit. We are raised with him in the heavenly realms. We are members of the heavenly gathering.

[6:16]
But when does somebody recognize that they are a member of your church? When do they say, all right, this is the particular body that Christ has called me to belong to and to seek to build up and speak the truth in love to one another? Well, if they're a mature believer, it may be that they do that, you know, one or two weeks into coming along to your church and praise God for the mature believer.

[6:48]
What about the new Christian? Now, if they're converted in your midst, praise God, they'll probably immediately see this is the church that I belong to and I'm called to. But what if they've been converted outside the church? Or what if they're an immature believer bringing a whole bunch of misconceptions and previous ideas from a previous church? do you lay out and explain for them the biblical expectations of membership? Now, I'm not talking, you know, certain ecclesiasties. I'm talking about the things that Tony has just helped

[7:19]
explore for us. The responsibility to care for, to love, to edify one another. Do you hope that they just pick it up through the regular weekly preaching of the word? Now, I hope so too, but it's something, and they will inevitably pick things up, but it's a slightly blunt instrument, unless of course you're preaching through 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, and then it's perfect. They'll all get it. That's your membership course right there. Or have you got a moment fairly early on in the life of your church where you can

[7:55]
take the opportunity to disciple these people, to put flesh on the bones for them and help them see what it actually means to live out their membership in the particular expression of Christ's body that is your local church. Naturally, you can see where I'm leaning. I think it's very helpful. Is it required? I think it's helpful to have some kind of moment, whether that's an official course or a conversation over coffee, probably doesn't matter.

[8:33]
on the size and probably the culture of your church. But having some kind of moment where you can explain what biblical church membership is all about is critical if you're going to disciple people and actually teach them properly and maybe correct some of the misconceptions that they're bringing with them about community, belonging, the things that we've just explored together. Now, obviously, there's a whole range of practical questions that might pop up at this

[9:03]
point. Things like, you know, where should that moment be on the pathway? Who should do it? How long should it go for? How often should you run this thing if it's formal? What should you include? The truth is that the answer to that question is going to change from every single church. There's strengths and weaknesses of various different things. Feel free to ask questions Purely by way of illustration, let me tell you what we do at Grace City.

[9:33]
So first, here is a diagram of our integration pathway. For the sake of time, I won't go through the whole thing. But really, you can tell from the direction of the arrow that the goal for us is to move people from the outside circle, let's face it, somewhat unhelpfully called the community, that's just people outside the church, circles by walking through a series of next steps, which are kind of the white squares,

[10:04]
as you can see, in the form of explore, on board, and then a ministry interview. Now, on board is our membership course. We specifically advertise it as something for Christians only. And so if someone's not a Christian, we say, it's so good that you're with us. We'd love you to get along to explore. That will explain the Christian faith. Oh, you've been out of church for a while? Get along to explore. Would be helpful to just resume, reflect and re-examine some of the

[10:34]
foundations. So Danny and I run it. Part of Danny's role is overseeing this area in our church. Having said that, when we first started, so I said we're a church plant. I don't know how long you're a church plant for, but we were a church plant once upon seven years ago we were. When we volunteer. At present, on board for us happens once a month. It goes for two hours on a Sunday afternoon from 1 till 3 p.m. at church, though again, when we first started, it maybe happened

[11:06]
every two or three months. I think it was eight to 10 weeks, something like that. It was two sessions over two hours over two Sunday afternoons, and it happened in my living room. You know, back then we'd maybe get one or two people along in that first year. Now we'd often have at least 10 or so. The content has also changed for us over the course of the years. These days, the first hour is typically sharing a little bit about the history of the church,

[11:39]
our vision as a church, some of our theological distinctives, and then really pressing into what is discipleship And what is sort of some of those expectations of biblical members? What does it mean that we belong to one another, that we belong to Jesus and we're in community with one another? So that's kind of the first hour. The second hour is just fleshing out very practically. All right, here's what our small group system looks like. Let's plug you in. Here is ministry teams. Here's how we'd love you to be involved, kind of trying to cast that vision,

[12:12]
what we're thinking about being people of service and talking about financial giving as well. And then we just read through a summary of kind of tries to bring all of that together. Now, again, that's simply what it looks like for us. It will look different in different contexts. Really, that's our attempt to have a moment where we can disciple people as they're heading into the life of our church. Now, before we move on and think about the community side of things, you might be asking,

[12:42]
do you get someone to your membership course or your membership moment, you know, your coffee chat? After all, if that's the key membership, a discipleship moment, how do we get people to experience it? Well, this is where I think it's helpful to recognize that there's typically three mini bridges that someone will go through on their journey as they sort of step into the life of your church. So you can see them here. Even if you don't have your official membership moment,

[13:13]
these three bridges will still inevitably be true for you. It's just that how you define membership might be slightly less definite. But as you can see, someone crosses bridge one when they come back to your church for the first time, and they cross bridge two when they come back to your church for a third time or more, and they cross bridge three when they go from being a attender to a member, at least in that more formalized organizational sense of your church.

[13:46]
Now, if you're wondering, okay, what help does a diagram like that have? Why is it helpful to sort of break it all down? Really, I think the key thing is just there is power in appreciating the steps. Once you know that these steps exist, you can start thinking about practical ways in cross those bridges. So, for example, you can start asking questions like, is there anything we can do to make a first-time guest more likely to come back for a second time? So, at Grace City,

[14:18]
every new person coming along gets a welcome pack inside that coffee vouchers, you know, coffee voucher or dinner voucher, you know, we want them to use that, use it on your first time or use it on your second time, come back and join us again. What about second-time guests? for a reason, how are their needs different to the first-timers' needs? I think this is where our hosts, that is our welcomers, our greeters, are seeking to, okay, I've met you last week, now I want to connect you with someone else in our church

[14:51]
so that you can get to know them as well so that they can warmly welcome you, not just me. And then there's people who come regularly but aren't in membership. Now, in our context, many of those people coming along are non-Christians, and so we're law. That's where you'll discover who Jesus is and what it looks like to follow him. But that's not everyone. Some people just keep coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. They've got their own definition of what membership looks like. It might be biblical, it might not. So we want to get them along to on board so we can try and define what does it look

[15:25]
like to be a member of this church. Now, there's no magical formula. So simply recognizing the reality of these steps is not going to solve it all for you. But I do think it will help you to love and care for each of the people coming to your church according to their particular needs rather than treating everyone the same. But suppose you ask, we won't come to community in just net, but happy to leave that slide up. Suppose you ask, how do you practically keep track

[15:56]
of who's a first timer, who's a second timer, who's a third timer? How do you do that piece? Short answer is that at least at our church, and again, maybe listen to the seminar we did previously for a little more on this, but it's really a combination of three different things, data sources, if you like, which is all then recorded in our church database, Elvanto. Now, when we started, we had Elvanto, but we didn't use it. You don't need Elvanto.

[16:26]
We just had a spreadsheet. We probably broke all sorts of privacy laws, but that's what we were doing. Sorry. But really, what were we doing? Well, our volunteer host team. So like I suspect many of you, we have people on the door seeking to welcome people into the life of our church. One of the jobs we give them is to check everyone in who comes into church. Now, if they meet someone who's a first timer and you tend to know, it's not always clear, but you usually know.

[16:57]
they will seek to get a name not usually contact details but they'll seek to at least get a name and then after that person has moved on they will now create a little profile for them in our database so we've sort of captured them that's our first way of getting people and creating a profile for them okay first timer second thing sort of source of data that we have is our connection cards. Now, these are online at the moment. We sort of moved into that, as I suspect

[17:28]
many others did since COVID. So, there's an online connection card. Now, not everyone fills them out, but some do, and that's where we might get the email address or the phone number from the people we've just met at the door that time that they've come in. And then the third step in all this is our Monday staff meeting. On Mondays, we will get a list of all the members who attended that Sunday according to the different services, as well as for each service, who are the non-members, who are the first-timers. And we'll look through that. And it also gives us an opportunity to say,

[18:01]
hang on, I spoke to Bill. Where's Bill? Bill's not here. Oh, he was missed. All right, let's record him. Bill gets put into the system and we can start to keep track of it that way. Now, why do you bother with that? Really, it's because Danny down the front here, and again it used to be a volunteer so you don't need paid staff to do this would then take that info and then get in contact with each of the relevant people to invite them along to onboard the next time it's happening. There might be a phone call,

[18:33]
a text, an email depending on what we have but obviously throughout this whole time we're also announcing it on Sundays in our church service. You know onboard's coming up, we'd love to see you there, here's who it's for. And so people can register themselves or just turn up. So there you have membership. And again, that's kind of membership as a step in a larger integration pathway. You're seeking to disciple the newcomer as they enter the life of your church. Second of all is community. Tony, some great diagrams, aren't they? I think those diagrams

[19:08]
are so helpful. That's not sarcasm, by the way. Actually, that picture paints a thousand words. Tony helped us see community is about sharing Christ as a common object of love. And so, you know, we share his sufferings, his spirit, his mission. We bring the word to one another. And so with that in mind, under this heading, I want to try and explore a number of the contexts in which we as church leaders can facilitate that kind of community. We can't create it.

[19:39]
God creates it. But what we can do is maybe create some contexts in which our people can engage in those activities. To do this, I actually want to lean on some insights from the world of social science and the field of study known as proxemics. If you want to explore these ideas further, two books that I would recommend would be The Search to Belong. guys if you can help me out by Joseph R Myers and Discipleship That Fits by Bobby Harrington

[20:13]
and Alex Absalom. Now it's worth saying you know the classic disclaimer there's a whole lot in those books that I disagree with particularly the one on the left but they certainly make for interesting and thought-provoking conversation partners so if you go read them be discerning but it's some interesting stuff. But what each of these authors draw our attention to is that there are four different spaces or contexts within which human beings typically relate to one another. And so

[20:48]
they kind of call them the public, social, personal, and transparent context. So as you can see in the table, the public context is where people gather in their hundreds around an outside resource, for example, crowd watching a sports game. There's the social context where 20 to 70 people gather to build affinity by sharing snapshots of who they are, for example, backyard party. There's the personal context where a group of four to 12 meet to share private information like good friends chatting over drinks. And then there's the transparent context where two or at

[21:21]
most three, I think they actually say four, gather to be open and vulnerable with one another, like for example, a marriage or deepest friends. Now, they're not biblical categories, nor am I suggesting that we accept them without question. But as I read through, both authors do make some helpful observations about the different ways that human beings relate to one another as sort of determined by the social rules of these kind of contexts. And also, as the Christians, sort of help us think through ways that we can practically bring the word to

[21:56]
in different ways depending on the context, which I found helpful. So I'll quickly try to race through and help us think through how each of these contexts provide spaces for us to bring the word and how we can lean into the distinctives. Maybe we could even say the strengths of each context as we seek to influence the shape and the life of our community together. I'll give you a combination of some of their thoughts, some of mine.

[22:26]
well, that some of these will probably go beyond the narrow bounds of what we're talking about as community here. Sorry, I thought they were interesting. So hopefully they're helpful or at least thought-provoking. So the public context. The most – I'll bring it up. You guys can give it to us. The most obvious example of the public context in the church, obviously to your Sunday gathering, typically 100 or more people there.

[22:58]
Now, it is fairly obvious, but our Sunday gatherings are, or at the very least should be, word-saturated. As we sing, as we pray, as we confess, as we offer thanksgiving, we're bringing Christ to one another through His Word. Having said that, a particular strength of the Sunday gathering there, as you can see, is the reading and the preaching of God's Word. is something happens in that context which is different to what happens in some of the other contexts and it's a real strength of that context because that is where we as the community of God

[23:33]
in this particular location are addressed and sharing a common word from God. For what it's worth, I also think this context is the best place to inspire and motivate people to take action or get behind a common vision that's larger than themselves. So as we share stories about what God is doing in the life of our community, not here necessarily on Sunday, but during the week in different circumstances, I do think people grow in their affection and

[24:04]
their love for this particular people and what God is doing in and through us and with this mission. And finally, there is something wonderfully evangelistic about our corporate gatherings. You know, even if your primary focus is let's edify the believer, Paul will still say in 1 Corinthians 14, you know, the outsider comes in and as they hear the intelligible word communicated, they fall down and say, God is really among you. So that's the public context.

[24:34]
What about the social context? Well, finding examples, thanks guys, of the social context in the life of church is, I think, less obvious. mainly because most of us don't have ministry structures or programs that gather people around this size. And so when I first read this book, I found myself thinking, oh, no, we don't have a social context. I have to create lots of things. I've sent her, no, I don't think that's right, particularly if your church, like ours, has relatively smaller,

[25:07]
you know, we have about 300 people at our church, but we have three services. So our gatherings are actually relatively small and our before and after church time in some way sort of fits in and functions a little bit like this social context. Other examples, though, particularly in larger churches might include any demographic ministries you have like men's breakfasts or even your broader ministry team, like small group leaders. You know, you gather them all together or your kids leaders, get them all together, band members, etc.

[25:41]
Now, as the table suggests, when people get together in these groups of 20 to 70, they will typically, at least according to the social science guys, they will share snapshots of who they are in an attempt to build affinity or connection with others. In other words, and you know this from experience, that's not where you want to share your deepest and darkest secrets. That's where you talk about your job. That's what you talk about what you did on the weekend or your family. Or in the context of the church, particularly before and after the service, that's what struck you from today's talk.

[26:19]
You know, sometimes that's where you will find people praying together, encouraging one another in those contexts. Now, I think compared to the other three contexts, this, particularly as church leaders, is where we will underestimate the significance of what can actually take place. So, for example, the before and after church time in a service, I think is key for us to experience what it means to belong to this community. If you think after church is just about chit-chat,

[26:52]
think about how much you missed it during isolation. I would preach to these people through a screen, and they all got a sense that they saw me, but I missed them. And I'm an introvert. There is something about that regular keeping up to date. this is the community that God has joined me to and called me to love and serve that

[27:25]
takes place in those spaces. It's also a context in which people tend to make connections so for example in the small to medium-sized church in particular I think the time before and after church typically where a newcomer decides is this the kind of church that I think I want to be a part of. That's also why you need to pay such close attention to that time from an integration perspective. Are you a welcoming community or is your edge so thick that people just can't break in? You're not welcoming the outsider in.

[28:01]
The personal context. Now, the most obvious example of the personal context in many churches the midweek small group. As you know, small groups of however many people getting together to read, pray and share. Thanks guys. Give us the next one if you can. The strengths of the personal context, particularly when applied to small groups, I think are obvious. And so it's a place to get to know others and be known by them. At the end of the day,

[28:36]
People want to be known and they want to know people when they turn up to church on Sunday. And so having them in a small group is just the perfect context for people to get to know and share a little deeper about who they are. It's also a great place for care and support to happen. So my small group this year, one of them's had a baby. So we put a meal roster together. Another has a very sick family member. So I've been around to pray with them.

[29:06]
A few times, others, you know, we went through isolation. Our group sort of brought things to our house while we went through COVID isolation. Just good practical ways to care and support each other. But maybe the greatest strength of the small group is that it gives people a chance to study God's word together and then speak God's word in a group where others know them personally. and so therefore they are able to comfort or challenge one another

[29:36]
with God's word according to the needs of the individual. And so I'm aware of at least three women in our church just in the last year who've broken up with non-Christian partners because in part their community group challenged them on what they were doing and then walked with them through the journey of that. Transparent context, very quickly, Most obvious would be the one-on-one discipleship, prayer triplets, close friends getting together to have a D&M.

[30:09]
Now, I'm not going to major on these, partly because they're kind of fairly self-explanatory, but also because as a church, it is very difficult for us to structure these kind of things from top down. Yes, there are things that we can do, but they're slightly more tricky. you. So you might be asking at this point, okay, so what am I supposed to do with that? On the one hand, the good news is you may not need to do anything.

[30:42]
Sometimes there is power in simply recognizing that different contexts in which people can participate in community and to see how they sort of complement all the others. other hand, you may want to look down the list of the strengths of each context and ask yourself, are we leveraging those strengths in the life of our community? Or if you've noticed a gap in a certain area of your church, you might want to ask, is there anything we could do to create one of those contexts? Or if it already exists, can we just encourage people to participate

[31:15]
in a context like that? So an attempt to give you an example, it's not perfect. but as we reflected on these concepts a few years ago we realized we didn't really have any space at least structurally as a church where people were engaging in the transparent context where were people kind of confessing sin with one another you know we say we want them to do it in their small groups people are only going to go a certain level there and so again it was far from

[31:45]
perfect but we thought what if we break once a term our small groups up into guys and girls and they can each meet separately and now they end up being closer to groups of four to six but that was us seeking to create a context to facilitate people sharing a little more deeply some of their struggles and therefore having the opportunity to either rebuke encourage or support people through that. So without giving you the details, our experience this year in my group,

[32:18]
some guys have shared some deep things that there is no way they would have shared in the context of our larger group, but they didn't. They were brave. And now we at least know and can encourage them and walk with them as they seek to be faithful in the midst of what they're dealing with. so there's community belonging won't take us that long but you guys are doing well let me let me finish with belonging and then we'll bring tony back up and we can try and wrestle out some questions together

[32:53]
so tony helped us to see theologically we belong to jesus christ therefore we belong to one another. No, we belong with one another in the place where he keeps his belongings, in Jesus' suitcase. That is the community of his people. The problem is these theological realities don't always match our lived experiences or the experience of the people in our churches. Right, Tony addressed this when he sort of intro'd this session. I'm sure that we all know people in

[33:26]
our churches, committed Christians who feel like they don't belong. They may feel abandoned by God or isolated and lonely in the community of faith, and that experience for them is incredibly alienating. It may even cause them to leave the church or maybe abandon the faith. Now, to a certain degree, some degree of alienation is going to be inevitable in a fallen

[33:56]
will ever perfectly experience, whatever that means, all the blessings and feel like we belong all the time. That is why we need to live by faith rather than by sight. Having said that, we as church leaders need to also be careful that we don't make light of people's experiences or just dismiss them and use that as an excuse for us not seeing if there's anything that we could do differently

[34:26]
to help their lived experience match the theological reality. But that does raise the question, well, what should someone's lived experience of belonging actually be? How should they feel about their belonging in this church? Well, that is where I think it's helpful to grasp that our lived experience of belonging is multifaceted, particularly as it relates to other believers. So, for example, we know it's not uncommon for church leaders to say things like, you know, church is a family.

[35:02]
And we are. That's obviously a biblical and helpful metaphor. But it is worth pausing to ask yourself, what do people hear when I say that? So growing up, when I heard church is family, I immediately associated that with all the intimacy and the closeness of my biological family. Now, that is a beautiful image. But is that what the authors of the New Testament are getting at? That we should, in the gathering and the community of people, experience all the intimacy and intensity of our biological families

[35:35]
in the spiritual family that is the church? Probably not. In fact, it's impossible if your church is any more than five to ten people, maybe 15 if you've got a really big family. But when we use that language without qualifying it, we may unwittingly be contributing to the frustration and the loneliness of our people by communicating or reinforcing unrealistic expectations

[36:05]
about what they should expect. So what's the solution? I think part of the solution is to recognise that the concept of family is multifaceted. That is, and this is not a progressive statement, okay? I'll say it and then you'll be like, what? the concept of the family is much broader than a husband and wife and two kids, particularly in New Testament times. Let me illustrate. Take my experience of belonging to a family.

[36:35]
I belong to a marriage with all the intimacy and intensity that that entails. I belong to my family of origin with parents and siblings that I call on for help at the drop of a hat. I belong to an extended family with in-laws, nieces and nephews where we gather every month or so to hang out and catch up. I also belong to a wider extended family with cousins and distant cousins where we get together once or twice a year to exchange polite conversation. Now, all of those contexts describe my family and each of them are genuinely significant to me.

[37:12]
but importantly I also belong to them in slightly different ways or at least my experience of belonging to them is different and therefore I know that different things are expected of me in each of the different contexts and that I can expect different things from others in each of the different contexts as well. So I suggest that the same ought to be true in our churches. Yes in Christ we're all related we're part of one big spiritual family and yet in Inevitably, we will experience the nature of that belonging in slightly different ways.

[37:45]
And again, I know I'm being slightly imprecise in the language here, but God may bless us with a few people at church who feel like spiritual brothers and sisters. Others may feel like nieces and nephews, while others, perhaps even most, will feel like spiritual distant cousins once or twice removed and maybe a crazy uncle. Is that wrong? No. On the contrary, I think it's healthy for us. After all, each layer of the family has different strengths and weaknesses,

[38:17]
and it's only as we belong and experience a range of relationships in God's family that we enjoy the fullness of belonging to God. So what do we do? Let me finish with three things that I suggest we do. The last one is a few points. Number one, build context for belonging. context for belonging. This is really, frankly, just an extension of the previous comment about community. But each of the four contexts also provide context in which people can belong.

[38:50]
So while our job as church leaders is not to force people to love each other, we can't do that. What we can do is create context in which people can experience some of the more tangible blessings of belonging to the people of God, number one. Number two, be careful how you communicate. Be careful how you communicate. A couple of months ago, we had an announcement at church that went something along the lines of this, and I've paraphrased it, something like this.

[39:21]
Hey, it's great that you're coming along to church, but if you really want to belong here, you need to get into a small group. We're a family and small groups where we really do life together as a family. Now, I know, as you know, exactly what that is trying to get at. But it's kind of unhelpful for at least three reasons. One, it's theologically inaccurate. Belonging isn't primarily a feeling. It's a theological reality. Christians belong to Jesus and we belong in the gathering because that's where Christ keeps his people.

[39:56]
second it tried to encourage participation in a small group by devaluing participation in the sunday gathering i don't do that remember it's multifaceted and people will start wondering well why do i bother coming to the big thing if belonging really happens in the small thing and third i think it over promised on what people can expect from our small groups at the end of the day i do genuinely want people to make friends and be family with the people in

[40:29]
their small groups but at least for us that's a byproduct not the main goal the main goal is to grow in fellowship and christian maturity so again be careful how you communicate third disciple the discontent disciple the discontent we recently got a summary of our NCLS data. When I first started reading it, I was very encouraged to see that 74% have a strong sense of belonging. 83% think we're inclusive. 72% found it easy to make friends. Now, I have

[41:05]
no idea how that compares with other churches, but I was like, oh yeah, I can run a seminar on that, crushing it. But then when it came to the things that people in our church wanted us to give attention to over the next 12 months. The second most common response was build a sense of community. 53% of the people in our church, the strongest was 55, which is spiritual growth. 53% of people

[41:35]
in our church want us to work harder at building a sense of community. In other words, for all their experience of belonging, inclusion, and friendship at Grace City, they still want a deeper sense of community. Now, it's hard to know whether people's experience of belonging at our church is what Bonhoeffer would call fleshy community. It's a little bit painful to think about, frankly. But either way, what it does tell me is that a lot of people are dealing with some level of

[42:08]
discontentment. For some of them, it will be low level. They're fine. For others of it, it will be significant and distressing. You can probably think of people like that in your church right now. So what are you going to do about it? What should you do about it? I think occasionally it'll be our fault as leaders. We've set up systems or structures, or we've just actually genuinely failed people that don't do what we can to help them experience these things.

[42:43]
But a lot of the time, frankly, it's got nothing to do with us. And this is when you need to disciple them. How? Four things very quickly. Number one, help them distinguish between soulish and biblical community. Remember, soulish community is a community built around our need to belong, whereas Christian community is a sharing in Jesus. Every now and again someone will say at our church, you know, there's no community here. I want to say, yes, there is. God created it through the death of his son.

[43:13]
What you mean is that you feel lonely. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. That is a human experience. But it is just helpful to distinguish the two concepts. Our job as church leaders is to encourage with the word and facilitate contexts in which people can express and live out the fact that they are a community brought together by God. They want friends. Again, that's a good thing to desire, but it's not your job to give them friends and nor can you do so.

[43:45]
They need to understand that. Second of all, encourage them to participate in the context of community. It is remarkable how often someone will complain church and yet they don't participate in any of the context that we've created for it to facilitate it. Maybe they barely ever come to church. They come and they bail straight away or they don't turn up to their small group or they don't join a ministry team. Have the courage to call them out.

[44:16]
Friendship isn't the goal of our communities but it is often a nice human by-product. Help them to see that to some degree they are contributing to their own misery. Third, maybe do it gently. Encourage them to take initiative. As Tony and I were chatting about this seminar, he shared this great line with me, which is something along the lines of, you know, when someone says, oh, there's no community here, his response is, oh, that's such a shame to hear

[44:48]
that you've invited everyone over to lunch and they've all said no. and then fourth and finally before q a encourage them to live by faith rather than by sight at the end of the day there's a pretty good chance that we'll never quite experience all the warm fuzzy feelings we want in our church but you in church leadership will know that as well right it's not just people in our church who are squeaky wheels we sometimes feel lonely

[45:18]
often feel lonely. That's when we need to encourage people to live by faith rather than by sight and give themselves to the work of loving the people in front of them, irrespective of how they feel, because God has brought them into membership of his body. They share Christ in that community and they belong to God, therefore they belong with one another. How about I pray and then we'll do some questions. Father we thank you so much for the helpful

[45:52]
Way that Tony has just Reminded us to think biblically about each of these three concepts We love the people in our churches We thank you that you in Christ have brought us into One body We thank you that we share a common love we're brought together together by Christ and now you call us to speak the word to one another to build one another up and we thank you that we belong to you we've been purchased by Christ for you so now we belong with your people

[46:27]
we pray that you would help us to lead our churches in such a way that we disciple our people and also particularly for those who are hurting who are frustrated who are disconcented help us to love and disciple them in and I will pray. Amen. I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Reach Australia podcast. If you'd like to get a bit more help for your leadership, maybe the Reach Australia Development Program is for you. It's a comprehensive two-year leadership development program that will provide you with monthly coaching,

[46:59]
a consultation for your church, and three week-long cohorts that will really push you in leading yourself, leading leaders, and leading the church as an organisation. To find out more, head to reachaustralia.com.au