In or Out?

In GC505DE this term, we are looking at how people today come to faith, and whether the church helps or hurts that process. The prof introduced an idea that, in the past, the church has followed this sequence in bringing people into fellowship:

behave
believe
belong

In other words, first clean up your act. Be decent - act like us. Then profess your faith in this particular little ceremony we use. After that, perhaps we'll let you join us at a potluck supper. That is, if you bring a dish to pass, and dress like the rest of us.

There is a shift underway, though, to recognize that this is not how people come into the church, normally. The sequence is more like:

belong
believe
become

If you are welcomed, regardless of appearance or behavior, and a sense of belonging grows on you, maybe you'll listen to what's being discussed, and come to belief. Once a transition to faith has happened, so does a desire to become like the One in whom you place your faith. And you have a network of people right there, with whom you already belong, to help you with that.

On our class discussion board, we put our reflections on the readings and lectures from each week. We read some other people's reflections and comment back. One guy responded to mine like this:

"I would agree with your thoughts on being careful of labeling people "in or out", "on or off", "sinner or saint." This really ties in well with what Geoff discussed in his lecture on moving from the idea of behave-believe-belong, to belong-believe-become. In this new era of the church, I feel more and more people running away from churches that have this "us and them" mentality. The churches I see growing around me are those who realize coming to faith and the process of discipleship afterwords is much more of a journey than belonging to a club or not. You're right, doing evangelism void of relationship simply just doesn't cut it in the culture we live in. I would say a majority of the people in my church are there because they feel like they belong through relationships. It's becoming less and less about the name or denomination on the door." -----JA

Right on.