More Than a Crowd

Week 2: Church Membership
Pastor Rick Henderson           June 20-21, 2026

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Note: This manuscript isn’t a transcript of the sermon, but a planning guide showing what the speaker intends to say.

 

I’ve watched her story on repeat this week—over and over. Every time the reaction is the same. I’m teary-eyed. I’m grateful. I’m inspired. But right now, in this moment, I feel small. Could you imagine trying to get up and preach after her story? What am I doing?! We should just take the offering again, pray, and go home.

When you watched that, didn’t it make you wish that she and her family lived here full-time? Doesn’t it make you want to have a friend like her? Could you imagine going through adversity of your own and having a friend like Chelley on your team, encouraging you, praying for you, in the trenches with you?

Here’s what hit me as I watched her story. What we just saw is not supposed to be rare in the family of God. Her courage, her honesty, her willingness to show up in other people’s pain and point them to Jesus, her willingness to let other people into her pain and the messiness of it all—that’s not meant to be the spiritual version of seeing a moose on a Boundary Waters trip. It’s not supposed to be rare. That’s a snapshot of what normal Christianity looks like when ordinary people live deeply connected to Jesus and deeply connected to a local church.

That thing in you that thought, “I wish I had someone like that in my life,” I think Jesus had that in mind when we dreamed up the church. The thing in you that thought, “I wish I was more like that for other people,” is exactly what he grows and forms in us when we stop relating to church as a place we attend and start embracing it as a people we belong to.

So today, I don’t just want to celebrate Chelley’s story; I want to ask a bigger question.

QUESTION: What kind of community creates those kinds of stories on purpose, not by accident?

What does it look like to belong to other people in such a way that your faith, your love, your presence becomes part of someone else’s faith story? What might it look like for your friendship, your quirkiness, God using the real you so that you can become part of someone else’s survival kit in the middle of their messes?

To answer that, we have to talk about something that doesn’t always sound exciting, but it has the potential to be powerful when we see it the way Jesus does.

Church Membership

I give you permission to roll your eyes. You can groan. You won’t hurt my feelings. Making a case for church membership is a tough sale for some of you. This comes with baggage. I get it. I’m not interested in membership as in:

My name is on a list somewhere.

Here’s a perspective on church membership that I’ve heard around here before.

Being able to attend a meeting I don’t want to go to so I can vote on something that’s already decided.

Not any of that. But membership as in:

I am part of a body, a diverse band of imperfect people who love Jesus and each other, a family, and I’m all in.

Each time I walk up here, I’m trying to persuade you. Full disclosure. I want something for you, and it’s going to cost you. But it’s worth it. I want you to have people in your life who have your back. I want you to know what it’s like to have other people’s backs. I want you to have rugged, unbreakable friendships with people in which you never have to second-guess your acceptance. I want you to have spiritual friendships. People who you laugh with, pray with, and with whom you can be the unedited, unmasked version of you. I’m talking about people who you can walk through hell with and celebrate on the other side. I want you to have that in a small-scale community, like a small group. And I want you to have that in a large-scale community.

I think that’s what we are supposed to experience with our church. So, to make my case, I’m going to start in an unlikely place. Let’s roll it back to the first page of the Bible.

GENESIS 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

On the first page of the Bible, the first thing we discover about God is that God is simultaneously singular and plural. The one, singular being, God, said, “Let’s make people in OUR image. We use the word trinity to describe this reality.

God is one in being and three in persons. Here’s why that matters. For all eternity, the singular being God is a community of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is why it’s not illogical or nonsensical to say that God is love. For God to be love, he must be loving for all eternity. And if God is loving for all eternity—there must be someone there for him to love. One in being, three in persons means that God is love, it’s not just something he picked up along the way.

The three persons have been in a dance of profound friendship and community for all eternity. Our universe and everything in it were created by this God. Do you know what that means?

Ultimate REALITY is ultimately about RELATIONSHIPS.

And you and I are made in the image of this God. We may be imperfect mirrors, but you and I were designed to reflect and represent who he is and what he is like. The stuff of life is the stuff of relationships.

We call this series More Than A Crowd.

SERIES THESIS: A crowd shares a ROOM. A church shares an IDENTIY.

We all start off in the crowd. When you walk into this room, you are in the crowd. But what a shame it would be if that’s all we ever were.

If you read the New Testament quickly, it might sound like a collection of inspirational letters.
If you read it carefully, you notice that almost all those letters are addressed to specific local churches.

• “To the church of God in Corinth…”
• “To the churches in Galatia…”
• “To all God’s people in Christ Jesus at Philippi…”
• “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people…”

These weren’t written to a vague, spiritual, invisible idea of “the church.” These New Testament letters were written to real people, in real places, who knew each other’s names, stories, and messes. They met, sang, argued, confessed, ate, and reconciled together. In other words, the New Testament assumes something we might sometimes resist.

We don’t need church in GENERAL. We need A church in PARTICULAR.

I think we know this intuitively.

• We don’t need friendship in general. We need friends.
• We don’t need marriage in general. We need our spouses.
• We don’t need parenthood. We need our kids.
• We don’t need family in general. We need our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, and cousins.

[Pointing to the screen] We don’t need church in general. We need a church in particular.

People are not interchangeable cogs in a utilitarian, relationship machine. You are not a cog in a Jesus machine. Local churches are not interchangeable cogs in a religion machine. And yet, people and local churches are reduced to interchangeable cogs whenever we exchange the way of Jesus for Consumerism Christianity.

For those of you who are skeptical of formally committing to a church through membership, and if you have some biblical savvy—you might want to hit me with an inconvenient fact.

FACT: There are no passages that talk about church membership. It’s not in the Bible.

100% true. I can’t argue with you and I wouldn’t want to. I do want to ask a question. When you read all the commands for relationships in a local church, how do you frame that? Let’s do a fly over. We’ll start with what we’re supposed to do.

DO

• Love one another — John 13:34-35; John 15:12, 17; Romans 13:8; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11; 2 John 5
• Be devoted to one another in love — Romans 12:10
• Honor one another above yourselves — Romans 12:10
• Live in harmony with one another — Romans 12:16
• Accept one another — Romans 15:7
• Instruct one another — Romans 15:14
• Greet one another — Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Peter 5:14
• Have the same care for one another — 1 Corinthians 12:25
• Serve one another — Galatians 5:13
• Bear one another’s burdens — Galatians 6:2.
• Be patient with one another — Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:13
• Forgive one another — Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13
• Be kind and compassionate to one another — Ephesians 4:32
• Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit — Ephesians 5:19
• Submit to one another — Ephesians 5:21; 1 Peter 5:5
• Consider others better than yourselves — Philippians 2:3
• Look to the interests of one another — Philippians 2:4
• Teach one another — Colossians 3:16
• Admonish one another — Colossians 3:16
• Encourage one another — 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11; Hebrews 3:13
• Build up one another — 1 Thessalonians 5:11; Romans 14:19
• Spur one another on to love and good deeds — Hebrews 10:24
• Show hospitality to one another — 1 Peter 4:9
• Use your gifts to serve one another — 1 Peter 4:10
• Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another — 1 Peter 5:5
• Pray for one another — James 5:16
• Confess your sins to one another — James 5:16
• Be at peace with one another — Mark 9:50
• Wash one another’s feet — John 13:14
• Wait for one another — 1 Corinthians 11:33
• Have unity of mind / love / sympathy / compassion / humility — 1 Peter 3:8

The next list is smaller. It’s the DO NOT commands.

DO NOT

• Do not judge one another — Romans 14:13
• Do not lie to one another — Colossians 3:9
• Do not slander one another — James 4:11
• Do not grumble against one another — James 5:9
• Do not bite and devour one another — Galatians 5:15
• Do not become conceited, provoking and envying one another — Galatians 5:26

 

That’s a lot to expect. And yet, those expectations, the kind of relationships envisioned by Jesus, for people in local churches are the exact kind of relationships that we instinctively want for ourselves. So, what is it that can make us resistant? In word, our experiences.

SLIDE: QUADRANTS CHART

I’m convinced that you could plot every one of your relationships on this chart. Every relationship you have is a mixture of trust and expectations. Let’s use this to think about a relationship with a local church.

Maybe you have high expectations of a church, but a church broke your trust. Maybe you feel like a church put expectations on you before trust was built. And it’s totally possible that there’s nothing wrong with you and nothing wrong with the church. Maybe this is just where the relationship is.

If you’re here, it can feel like this.

SLIDE: Q1

Maybe both trust and expectations are low between you and a local church. Maybe you it never occurred to you that you could expect something from a church. Maybe it never occurred to you that churches can have expectations of people. Maybe it’s just too early in the process for trust to be present yet. It’s totally possible that there’s nothing wrong with you and nothing wrong the church. Maybe this is just where the relationship is.

If you’re here, it can feel like this.

SLIDE: Q2

Over here is where it starts to get better. Nobody is putting expectations on anyone, but the level of trust is high. The experience is just good, and it can feel like this.

SLIDE: Q3

Up here is where the best relationships in life happen. There are high levels of trust and high levels of healthy expectation. I’m not talking about imposed expectations. That’s control. Healthy and happy relationships are not controlling. These expectations are always invited and never imposed.

This is wedding season. I’ve already done one and I have more on the calendar. I used to do a lot of premarital counseling. This was one of my questions. What can you expect of this person when you get married? And without fail, I got the lovey, syrupy, Hallmark answers. And they were good answers. Eventually, the conversation would turn, and they’d want to know what I expect from my wife. My answer was always the same and never what they expected.

Only what she’s promised. If I expect anything other than what she’s promised me, all I’m doing is smuggling disappointment, smuggling frustration, and smuggling control into our marriage. By the way, if you’re experiencing frustration, disappointment or controlling tendencies in your relationship—recalibrate your expectations to what the other person has promised and only that.

In the best relationships, expectations are only INVITED and never IMPOSED.

You may desire a level of expectation that’s higher than what the other person has promised. If I’m talking to you, please hear me on this. The pathway to that kind of relationship you want, a relationship with upgraded, healthy expectations, the pathway to that is never going to include imposing expectations on the other person. When you have a relationship with high levels of trust and high levels of healthy expectations, it feels like this.

SLIDE: Q4

Let’s get real and maybe a little messy. If your relationship with Autumn Ridge Church is here (Q1), it is unrealistic and unkind to think you’re going to jump to here (Q4). If you’re relationship with Autumn Ridge Church is here (Q2), it is unrealistic and unkind to think you’re going to jump here (Q4).

Your relationship with our church doesn’t need more expectations put on you.

SLIDE: Arrows to Q3

The relationship needs an infusion of trust. The next step is not to raise the level of expectations for you. The next step is to build trust. How long does that take? It takes what it takes. There’s no set time frame. And the more your trust has been broken in the past, the longer it will take to build trust. And that’s OK. You get to decide how long that takes. No one else gets to decide that for you.

SLIDE: Arrow to Q4

So, how does someone move from here (Q3) to here (Q4) with Autumn Ridge? That requires having enough trust in your relational account that you voluntarily give the church permission to expect things from you. This (Q4) is the best kind of relationship possible. It’s a relationship of high mutual trust and high mutual expectation. When we talk about church membership, that’s the kind of relationship we are talking about.

For some folks, the journey to just get here is miraculous. For some folks, the weight of experiences you carry with you makes the journey all the way here (Q4) too much and too far. So, if this is as far as you make it—no one is ever going to be mad at you. I’m never going to be disappointed. If this (Q3) is as far as you ever make it, what a privilege it is to be a church where you can experience trust.

For those of you who are here (Q3). Your bank account of trust is looking pretty good. And you want the best kind of relationship possible with Autumn Ridge Church; I’m inviting you to become a church member. This is what membership is at Autumn Ridge.

CHURCH MEMBER: Anyone who is a follower of Jesus, baptized on their profession of faith, who desires to enter a relationship of mutual trust and expectation with Autumn Ridge Church

Maybe I haven’t made my case today. Maybe you’re still a bit reluctant. If your response to this is something along the lines of, “I trust the church, and I want to be trusted in return. Can’t we just have a strong relationship without putting a label on it? Doesn’t something formal and bureaucratic, like membership, make it less than?” OK. We can take that approach. But if we do, at the very least, let’s be honest about what we’re opting for. I call it…

CASINO CHRISTIANITY

Casino Christianity is when every expression of love, every step toward community is a roll of the dice. Relationships never progress beyond a gamble because no one will let you know if you have permission to count on them.

I think we can do better than that. I think we deserve better than that.

So what do you have the right to expect from the leadership of Autumn Ridge? Whether you are a member already or today is your first time here—the leadership of Autumn Ridge gives everyone permission to expect these things of us.

EXPECTATIONS: You can expect that pastors and elders will go first and model whatever is asked of attenders and members.

If we call you to pursue spiritual formation, we must pursue spiritual formation.
If we call you to generosity, we must be generous.
If we call you to accountability, we must live honest, accountable lives.

Check out this mandate to church leaders.

ACTS 20: 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Notice the order: yourselves, then the flock.

Leaders are not EXCEPTIONS to the rule; they are EXAMPLES of it.

Leadership in the church is not a platform of privilege; it’s the privilege of responsibility.
If you’re going to trust us, we must be the ones who go first.

EPHESIANS 4:11-13 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

EXPECTATIONS: You can expect empowerment and accountability.

That looks like several concrete commitments from us. We will support your spiritual formation, leadership development, and equipping for ministry.

We will provide environments where you can develop spiritual friendships—places where you can be known, know others, and both give and receive care.

We will embrace accountability, be honest, and provide clarity in finances, organizational decisions, doctrine and cultural statements, and the behavior of staff and leaders. You should never have to wonder, “Are they telling us the real story?”

When we provide accountability for members of the church, we will hold truth and grace equally, with the goal of reconciliation.

EXPECTATIONS: You can expect that we will abide by our Mission, Vision, Values, Doctrinal Statement, and Bylaws.

This is a big deal. The leadership is not above the church’s commitments; we are underneath them with you.

QUESTION: When someone becomes a member, what are they giving Autumn Ridge Church permission to expect of them?

• To affirm and live in accordance with the Doctrinal Statement.
• To be active in the life of the church
  • Weekend services
  • Group life
  • Serving with a team
  • Financial support
  • Inviting others
• To pursue spiritual formation
• To protect the unity of the church
• To prioritize the Mission, Vision, and Values of the church above personal preferences
• To pray for the church and its leadership

This is what this all comes down to. It’s a practical, on-the-ground way of saying, “This is my church, and these are my people. I trust you. I’m with you. You can count on me.” This is our way of removing the fine print and clarifying what it means to love one another. Jesus said this.

JOHN 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Call me crazy. I think church membership honors Jesus because it makes our love visible and verifiable.

Love without COMMITMENT eventually becomes CONVENIENCE.

I want to offer three ways to respond:

1. If your trust level with our church is feeling pretty good, come to the next Membership Class on July 12. Let’s have a conversation.
2. If your trust level isn’t there, give yourself all the time and opportunity you need for trust to grow.

Behold Jesus. More than anything else, I want you to know that all the ways he envisioned us loving each other, that’s he he loved us. He put it all on the line and spared no expense to love you and to love me. May we be captivated by that.