Ask the Pastors S5 E8: “Can non-members serve the church?"

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Welcome to Ask the Pastors a segment of the West Hills Podcast where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host, one of the pastors, and I'm joined by Pastor Will. Hey and Pastor Austin. Hello. And today I'll be reading a question from Jill. Jill, thanks so much for your question. It's a really thoughtful, intentional question. It is a bit on the longer side, so we're going to start off by reading it from the beginning. So just start by reading it. Let's do it. First of all, she mentions this is sent with love and gratefulness for each of you and your shepherd like leadership. She says, I think this is related to Ephesians four, so it seemed timely to send this sooner rather than later. She just

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Preached on that this past Sunday.

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Yeah.

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Ephesians four, 11th through 16, this section she wants to reference, so give

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Context. So she asks, with whom do we do the one another's and building up to mature manhood Work for ministry then with the fellow members of West Hills Church, Ephesians four 12, how can we build up an undefined body? I believe it would help the Equippers of West Hills Church to know whom they're actually equipping throughout all of Ephesians four and elsewhere in similar New Testament texts. While it's theologically true that God's work, gospel witness and gospel growth through evangelism and discipleship is not limited to time and place to the global slash universal slash historical church for finite humans like us who are limited by time and place like the local church at Ephesus in the first century ad. The interpretation and application of the text only makes any practical sense in the context of a local church. And here membership should matter. Everyone is better served by clarity on who is part of our local church and who's not.

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She's an asterisk for everyone, meaning members, non-members, elders, and the watching world. Building up of West Hills, it's like having a kid's basketball team without a roster. So a bunch of kids and parents are around to practices in the games, but you're not quite sure which of the siblings present is supposed to be on the court, how to coach whom to the bench rotate in for a quarter, et cetera. I really thought the sermon was amazingly encouraging to do this work of ministry, but it lacked a key part. The body of Westlaw's church is only as fit as the definition of it. You referenced, give me your parking spot if you're not willing to serve. Give me the parking spot. But what about the person who keeps coming but isn't committed to accountability and elder oversight who gleans what they want to, who gleans what they want to but isn't held accountable for life and doctrine, putting off sin and putting on Christ in the way only members can help one another do.

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An important observation I have made is that membership is encouraged at West Hills Church, but there's really no benefit. A non-member can do everything. A member can except voice of vote, which I guess some could even do. I guess some could even do that without consequence or notice. Is church discipline practiced EG? The older couple who won't attend due to weird views post COVID, why are they disciplined for non-attendance? Ephesians four 14 or if they're not members, then why do you really care? They're not part of your flock to give an account for before God. I think it would be best for folks who keep coming but not committing to feel frustrated by the lack of opportunity. It would cause them to deal with their spiritual state simply cause those who struggle with their, excuse me, it would cause them to deal with their spiritual state.

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Simply continue to come for a greater understanding of the gospel, help them to discern what they believe in why and decide whether they can in good conscience unite with West Hills' Church or look elsewhere. I think we can agree that we do not want lukewarm Christians to feel comfy at West Hills Church. Too many people have been there for ages and are not members of West Hill's Church, but serving as though they're committed. Why is that? It's very nice they serve. But how can we know they're actually believers whose aim is for life and doctrine to be aligned with the statement of faith and essentials of adherence to scripture and the pursuit of holiness. Also, some of those serving in children's ministry I've come across simply serve then go home, forsaking the service and centrality of the word and fellowship with others. Some of them had little kids, but still wouldn't you rather that they not serve but persevere through a sermon than meet a need but not get nourishment?

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Wouldn't it be best for folks to feel uncomfortable not joining? It would be a pretty hard turn and change at West Hills Church, but might I humbly suggest you make it that only members can serve. Only members can come to life groups and D groups maybe making provision for a brief visiting time, two to three times per to give sufficient time to get the picture of how it's handled. Since you desire the word to be front and center, then why not take a step back on all the ministries to ensure the health of the body a K defined body. All limbs, ligaments, bones are attached longevity of West Hills' Church and my understanding is linked more to its commitment to one another and the centrality of the word for everyone rather than its fluctuating and undefined serving of members and long-term visitors alike. She closes with, I've prayed about this and truly do send this email with care, humility and with gratitude. It'll be a lot easier to just say these things in person for tone and heart to be conveyed clearly. I'm blessed by each of you and your intentionality toward West Hills Church at large and even specifically toward me. Thank you for serving me and my family

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  And thank you Jill for that question. And I know it's a mouthful, but really appreciate her thoughtfulness and just even time and thinking through and sending that. And I felt like it was important to read the whole thing for context. I also feel like for our purposes it's probably helpful to try and summarize it if nothing else. We're going to have to boil it down to a one line question that we can title the episode when we post it

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  For sure.

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  And so if I was going to boil it down, I think her basic question here is why do you let non-members serve at the church or should we? But really why? And it's a fair question. Good question. It is just funny. I appreciated it getting this email, especially this week because in the context, again of having just preached on Ephesians four and having said some of the things I did say that Jill references here of like, why are some of y'all who are members not serving? You should be at a church where you feel like convicted enough and encouraged enough and you want to be a part of it enough that you can serve. And if that's not here, go find another church or go find a church that has a different philosophy of ministry that doesn't care whether or not you serve and doesn't care whether or not you're mature and doesn't care, then has a very different understanding of what it means to be a part of the body and to be a member. And so I appreciated getting this because I've gotten so many emails and calls from upset people over the past two days who were upset in the opposite direction because we want to keep coming and not contributing or whatever. But it was encouraging to me to get the other side of the coin here from Jill saying, I think you actually weren't harsh enough.

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  You didn't raise the bar far. You should not only be yelling at the members who aren't serving, you should be yelling at the non-members who are serving and should be member. So anyway, but in responding to her specific question about why do we do that? Why do we let folks come and not be members and serve and attend small groups and all of that? And really her I guess bigger philosophical question that she starts with here, with whom do we do the one another's and building up to mature manhood work of ministry if it's not with fellow members of West Hills. And I thought maybe we'd just go through, not reread it, but just kind of commenting on and responding to specific questions maybe Jill ask along the way. So with that one, my very quick answer is she's absolutely right. I think the folks that we do, the one another's 44 1 another's and the New Testament and the building up to mature me, I think it is the fellow members of West Hills, how can we build up an undefined body?

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  I would say we can't. I would say I use that exact line in our membership class every quarter when we do a membership class and I say, this is why we have meaningful membership at West Hills. And we draw those boundary lines around who's in, who's out because of the membership? Because we need to be able to know, taking Paul's analogy of the body, how many arms do we have, how many legs do we have? Do we have a spleen? Do we have a set of lungs who's doing what? And to be able to know where the giftedness is, who's in, who's out, and how it all fits together in one cohesive way. And so I would say absolutely. That's my quick answer to that paragraph. Do you have anything you want to add to that, Austin?

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  Yeah, I think that her point on everyone is better served by clarity on who is a member is true. It's also challenging at a church that's now reached our size where you're at somewhere around 250 members and so does every congregant in their yeah know whoever member is unlikely. Now all leaders know who their members are hopefully. So we have a structure in place for shepherding where elders oversee the groups of different kinds, life groups and D groups, leaders of life groups and D groups should know who the members are in their midst. And

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  Where it gets tricky is with, and we'd have to go back and pull the numbers on this, I mentioned the 78 who aren't serving in a regular active way, members who aren't serving, but we'd have to pull the numbers on how many it's around the same. And it's probably the same people, the same people who are not serving, who are also not in a small

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  Group.

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  Because if you're not in a life group or a discipleship group, then you're not getting that frontline of shepherding, which means you're also not then getting that trickle down shepherding of the elder who oversees and who's getting those prayer requests and getting checking in and knowing those members underneath. So yeah, it just exacerbates that problem. And that's why some churches, and frankly probably I know the church that Sam and Jill came from, and I suspect they raised the bar even higher on that and probably don't let you join the church unless you're also a member of a small group because they believe that everyone has to get shepherded so much. And for now, we've decided, you know what? If you don't want to be shepherded in that kind of a regular weekly ongoing way, you're still on our membership directory, you're still going to get prayed for twice a year when the elders pray through the directory twice a year and we cycle through, you'll get checked in on. But the fact of the matter is you can Ms. Church more than those other folks without somebody noticing because you're not going to have the same kind of oversight and input and community and accountability and all that.

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  And that is, yeah, we just haven't, we discussed it, but just ultimately for now, I've decided that feels how much do you want to add to it is hard, I think to when you don't have a specific New Testament, thou shalt belong to a small group to start adding heaping up more and more requirements on that for membership. It's for sure the best thing. It is important. And I don't know that there would be many exceptions to that rule that I would, I mentioned exceptions to serving. There may be some exceptions to belonging to a small group as well, either a life group or a D group, but it's probably even fewer for that. But anyway,

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  Yeah, and I do think though to Jill's concern, one, the thing I really appreciate about this email is that it indicates she has a high view of church membership and we have a lot of members that have a high view of church membership, and I really appreciate that. And so instead of just trying to only point out those that need to raise the bar, we have many that take it really seriously, and we are very fortunate for that. Is it, I do think there could be a real benefit to someone like Jill of an actual membership directory that they have better access to. We have the church center thing, but we're not up to date on photos. So if I pull up somebody, I'm like, I don't know this, know this person's name, but I don't know their face. I personally would be really aided by that. And I know some in our church, they never bought anything on the internet. So going on church center is not an option. Maybe we need to do the Sunday where everybody stays around for an hour and gets their picture taken. And we do have a printed directory. Could be of some real benefit to know, okay, who's who in the zoo?

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  And fortunately we've got some newer folks on staff like yourself, like Carol, who are helping us with that backend administrative, operational type of how do we get all the parts of the body functioning together as cohesively and as possible. So yeah, moving on to the next paragraph here. She mentions the analogy of the kids' basketball team without a roster. And again, it's another one that I think I've used that specific kind of as a coach and a player myself in our membership class, you need to know who's on the team and that doesn't mean that others aren't invited to the games and the practices and whatever.

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  That's great

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  Analogy, and I'm going to get to this in just a minute too. Part of what I would say is I, as long as someone is kicking the ball in the same direction as us, I don't do they have to have our jersey on anyway, we'll get to that. But her point here about thought the sermon was amazingly encouraging, let's go do the work of ministry, but it lacked a key part. The body West Hills is only as good as the definition of it. I would say again, the sermon went 10 minutes long anyway, so I could have added more and more and more. I would maybe push back on, and again, I want to be open to critique, but I think actually I defined the body of West Hills implicitly when I said, here, let me give you this example and let's make this practical. 78 of our 247 members aren't serving. When I said that, and I quoted that statistic,

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  I define the body, I said, here's the body, 247 members. And so anyway, but again, it bears repeating, it bears mentioning, can you mention membership too much? Our non-members who are regular attenders, who Jill is sort of calling out in her email, would absolutely say, yes, I know them better than she does. And I've had those conversations. And again, that's not to say that she's not right about that, but we got a lot of folks at this church who I say at this church, I mean who are here every Sunday and a lot of 'em serving week in and week out, and who love this church and their hearts and minds committed to this church who have not signed on the dotted line of the covenant of membership and been interviewed by an elder and all the other and been voted in by members. But who would say it's always hard for them?

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  It's always hard for them. Anytime I even implicitly bring up membership is hard. And each of those situations might be a little different. I would say 95 plus percent of the time in our case, it's because we don't let you join. If you haven't been Credo baptized, baptized as a believer on your profession of faith, which is a whole nother done, many podcasts, episodes and whatever, but that's the sticking point for them. And whether they have a different understanding of baptism or they just dug their heels in or whatever it is. But I just mentioned that to come at that from the opposite end of the spectrum, to me, most things, I've done this for a little while now, most things in the church, there's some places to dig your heels, be black and white, be on the extreme. For me, one example is the abortion thing.

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  I'm pretty extreme. My view would get labeled by 99% of America's population as extreme. I don't even know about the exceptions for case of rape and incest in way life of the mother. Anyway, not getting off on that tangent, but I'm using that as I'm extreme on some things. But on most things, like if you're getting critiqued by both ends of people in your church, you're probably doing something pretty right. So the fact that we've got some folks who are going to say, you need to make membership more of a deal and make people feel even more bad if they're not members and they're here. And then other people saying, I feel like as much as you already talk about membership, it's hard. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll be in the middle on that. That's where I want to be.

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  But if we go on to this next point, she makes who gleans what you referenced given your parking spot if you're not willing to serve. But what about the person who keeps coming isn't committed to accountability, elder oversight, who gleans what they want isn't held accountable? What do we do with that person? And that's where I would come back to more of Jill's side of it and say, I do think that that's a problem. I do think obviously that there's a reason to belong officially covenantal to a church as a member. That's why we have membership classes. That's why we make the distinction. That's why we push it every time a class is coming up, come and I keep inviting folks, those same folks, and I'll try and be, I guess respectful deferential enough to say like, Hey, if you want to quit getting this email from me every four months when we have a membership class, you need to let me know.

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  But otherwise, every time we have a membership class and you're not a member, I'm going to email you, tell you you should come and take the class and join the church and be a member because I believe that for everyone here or really search and decide whether or not, yeah, there is another church where you feel like you should. And that would really pain me. And it has pain me because that happens obviously a couple times a year. We'll have somebody who just eventually can't stand anymore and they hear everything about membership and they get convinced and convicted and they're like, you're right, should be a member, but I'm not going to get baptized. So I might go do that at a Presbyterian church or whatever. And again, always painful, always hard, but hey, got enough of a big C view of the big C church that I got a lot of good Presbyterian friends, good Presbyterian churches that I'd be happy to recommend to 'em to go and be at a church where on that particular second tier issue, maybe they're in more alignment and they can be shepherded and they can be held accountable and they can be prayed for more consistently and they can do that.

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  So anything you want to add on that point, Austin?

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  No, I think I'm more interested to go to the next one because I think this is a point where we just need some clarification. Let's do it. Is that where Jill points out, a non-member can do everything, A member can except voice vote. Actually, that's not the case. True. So if a non-member wants to lead a life group, lead a D group, teach a Sunday school class, join the prayer team, perform marriage, mentorship and so forth, that's off limits.

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  We've drawn lines.

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  Yeah. We have some areas of service to be sure where we think that it's okay for non-members to serve. You want to serve on the worship team. You can do it if you want to help set up and tear down tables if you want to help in kids, men, those are if you want to do the coffee bar

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  Even with kids, men, this is, I just, half an hour ago I was talking with Allie and she updated me. I didn't even realize that the statistics have gone where they have with that, where she, I mean, Allie is even there kind of drawing a line and said that she really, really, really strongly prefers that. Our lead teachers in the kids' classrooms, she's got a lead teacher who does the lesson and then an assistant who cuts in takes to the bathroom doesn't, sorry, cuts out crafts.

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  It's good to know what that means.

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  Yeah. But did the lead teachers, she said, we've only got out of 60 something volunteers, 70 something volunteers and kids been, there's like one and a half who aren't members. One's in process of joining the church, which is great, great raising the bar important to be a member. And we do. We do. Absolutely. It is just objectively not true to say that a non-member can do everything that a member can't.

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  And I think it's important we say why those that we listed is that they're largely teaching roles or intercessory type of roles of praying and so forth where we think that in those areas that absolutely we would need a member in place. We want

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  To know you more deeply, we want to know as best as we can that you're a believer. I mean that's the biggest part of membership is validating a credible testimony of faith that we've heard your testimony, we've heard your understanding of the gospel. We believe that to the best of our knowledge, you believe the same gospel. We believe you worship the same God we worship and we're after. The same thing here in terms of mission and vision of the church, philosophy, ministry, all those kinds of things. And even beyond what a member versus non-member can do, I would say Jill uses the word benefit where she says, I've made observation that membership is encouraged here at our church, but there is really no benefit. I would say that too is just actually untrue. I already mentioned prayer for instance. I pray through and we as elders pray through our membership directory. I don't pray through the regular attenders list. You're not going to get prayed. I mean, you can fill out a prayer card. Any regular tender can fill out a prayer card any given week. And I'm going to pray for that. I pray through those weekly cards. But yeah, so I mean that's just another example. Not to mention even practical things like you want to use the building for a wedding, a funeral, this and that priority is given to members.

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  You're in the hospital. I tell people this in our membership class, you're in this hospital, A members in that hospital, and I've only got an hour before surgery or whatever, I'm going to go visit the member just because I do feel like that is who they have covenant submitted to my authority as their pastor. I've covenant pledged my pastoral shepherding to them in a different kind of way. So I think that's all. Yeah, I think we're on the same page about that. Now. She does mention in her parenthetical with the voice vote that at our quarterly all church meetings, which we invite everyone to attend, but we do the business of the church there and we ask, for instance, when we take a vote on an elder or calling a pastor or a budget or whatever, we ask only the members to vote. And sometimes we do that by voice, like she mentions and she says, I guess some could even do that without consequence or notice. Like yeah, I mean, could somebody say yay or nay, even if they're not, yeah, yeah. And we tell 'em not to. They could. Again, there's a certain point in time where I would say, man, if we can't honor system, trust the adults to be adults and to know that you're not a member and this and that. So anyway, I don't want to nitpick on that. It's never been an issue. If it got to be an issue, we probably just wouldn't invite that person

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  Anyway. So yeah. What's more to say there is church discipline practice. She mentions the story I told in the sermon a couple of weeks ago about older couple who haven't attended since COVID, why haven't they been disciplined for non-attendance yet? I won't go into the details, but there is more to that story that couple does deal with serious legitimate health concerns, maybe some of the mental health, but also physical health concerns that makes attendance difficult if not impossible. And we've discussed that and decided, hey, we think they have a legitimate reason not to be here in person, and so we're not going to discipline them out of the church for that or something for non-attendance. But anyway,

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  Skipping down, she mentions, I think it would be best for folks who keep coming and not committing to membership to feel frustrated by the lack of opportunity to keep hitting up against that ceiling of I'm not a member, so I can't do this, I can't do that. And we all agree. We don't want lukewarm Christians to feel comfy here. And I mean, of course I would say, of course, otherwise I wouldn't have preached this past Sunday's sermon if I didn't want to upset the comfortable and comfort the upset as we're supposed to in a sermon. So yeah, I mean, if you've gotten too comfortable, complacent and aren't serving or aren't joining or whatever, we want to push you to continue growing in spiritual maturity, in obedience to the Lord. But again, I think to be in the middle and to speak to the other, I think there is a possibility of some of what I hear here in maybe some of her past churches, which I would look at in their policies and the way they do things and say, there's a point at which it also feels kind of punitive and it feels kind of petty, judgmental.

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  I mean, you could fill in the blank with other words of, I mean to me there's a point of saying, we want you to join, you should join. It's important to join, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But if you tell somebody that enough, yeah, I mean at some point you got to either say you're not welcomed here or you say, we understand we've had this conversation, we think you should join. You're not going to join. So here we

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  Are.

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  And for me, that's where I've gotten with a lot of those folks here at West Hills, and I'm not going to go cross that line of saying leave the church. I'm not going to tell them leave the church. Now, I did say to the flip side is I did say specifically in our sermon to our members who aren't holding up to their membership covenant and serving like they said they would. I said, leave the church. I said, if this is not, you're in disobedience, you lied, you're not. So either repent and be a person of your word and serve or go be true to your word somewhere else where they don't ask you to raise that, but they don't ask you to serve. They're okay with you just being a pew warmer and being a consumer. So yeah, you wanted to jump in there.

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  Yeah, I mean I think that whether it's a regular attendee, a non-member or it's a member, everyone's sanctification takes a lot longer than we anticipate. And when it comes to the spiritual discipline, which it is of serving in the church, we might have both members and non-members, regular attendees that are off the charts and they're serving. But in the seven days a week might pray nine minutes. And so my point is on either side, this is one area where some people might have a lot of growth to do. For example, we mentioned the 70 so odd that aren't serving at all. That's a spiritual maturity problem. And the flip side I think could also be true. So to your point of like, do we want to kick 'em out? No, because I think that people's, again, I can speak to my own experience. I think we all could in certain areas of our Christian self, some sanctify more quickly and more slowly than others.

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  Absolutely.

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  Just looking at other questions, Jill ask here, too many people have been here for ages, not members. Why is that? It's nice to know they want to serve and they're serving. How can we know they're actually believers whose aim is for life and doctrine and alignment with our statement of faith and pursuit of holiness? I'd say we can't to a certain extent. We can't. I, and that's why we have membership and that's why we draw some of those lines where we're like, okay, in which of these serving roles, in which of these small group roles, community, life of the church roles, is it essential to know that we are dealing with a believer and we're pulling in the same direction? She said also some of those serving in children's ministry I've come across serve and then go home forsaken the worship service centrality of the word fellowship with others. That I would say that's a problem. I mean, that's a problem and that's something we've always dealt with. I would say one of the best days in the history of our church, west Hills was January, 2020, right before COVID, when we added a second service. And that was probably my biggest selling point to everybody who was worried about that on selling them on it was what about the people who serving kids ministry?

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  Because you're telling 'em to come up here, drive up here and teach the kids, and then go home and they don't get to be with the body. And so I am a big believer in that. I would absolutely say to anybody, and Allie would agree to, I mean, I was going to make a joke about allie's going to kill me for saying this if you had to choose between serving a kids men or going to the worship service. But she said the same thing. She has told her volunteers, it is important for you, yes, to serve and to pour into the lives of our kids, but to be poured into and to be there on Sunday mornings with the church. And there may be extremely rare exceptions to that. Someone gets sick last minute and you've already got the lesson prepped because you taught it at nine o'clock and can you teach it at 10 45?

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  But even then, I would say this is why we have substitute teachers and fill-ins ready to go because it's too important for people to be a part of the corporate worship. I'm going to say the next best day in the life of the church is going to be in some ways when we go to three services. So you can go and teach your kids and other people's kids, then you can come to the worship service and then you can also stay for one of our great Sunday school classes. You can do all three because right, even now, we've got folks who are saying, man, I want to serve in kids men, but that means one month out of every other, I've got to Ms. Austin Sunday school class, which I really want to be a part of. So praise God for technology. We record everything these days. We're recording the Sunday school, we're recording the Sunday mornings. If you're sick, if you have to choose only two out of the three, you can still do some of it. But to Jill's point on that, I would just say you, for anyone listening, like don't come and serving kids, men and then go home. I mean, unless there's some kind of an emergency or whatever

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  On a regular

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  Basis, don't do. Yeah, you need to be here.

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  Sometimes things comes up, but on a regular basis, that's not okay.

  (34:59):

  So let's get to maybe the strongest, and I know you got to go and we don't want last forever, but what if we made it to where only members can serve and only members can be a part of a small group, a life group, a D group, and she makes sort of her case for that. Why don't we do that? The longevity of the church is linked to the commit to one another and defined serving and buy-in. Here's what I would say is, again, I already talked about it with the punitive versus whatever, but also I would say, look, it's important for me. The other member, sorry, the other analogy Paul uses the most in the New Testament is body of Christ, family, spiritual family. Church is spiritual family. It's important for me to know who's in my family, who's in and who's not, right? The five of us around the dinner table every night, that's my family. Now, you guys come over and eat with us quite a bit. We're close. We've got extended family, the grandparents, the cousins, the aunts and uncles this. So there are other people who are not in that core, Duval five.

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  And to me, there could even be, I could envision a scenario where we are so close with people who live right next door that their kids are over all the time and this and that. I would say, are there going to be certain things that is important to relegate to just our Duval five? Yes. But there's also going to be a lot, I mean, part of, to me even just thinking about it in terms of hospitality, I just think you have to be careful with how much you want to say No, you're not invited. You're not invited for dinner. Again, people talk, one of the practicals, fencing, the communion table, I mean, this will come up. And again, I know the church that the Fletchers come from, and I know that they just take a much more strict stance on this, who is invited to receive communion. It's much more like the

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  Catholics

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  Where I go into a Catholic church and they're going to say, unless we baptize you, unless you, you're a Catholic Christian, you're not welcome here. And that's where we've said, no, no, no, it's not the West Hills communion table. It's not the E freak communion table. It is Christ's table, the Lord's Supper. And so if you belong to him and others are just going to have a different philosophical conviction on that, that's fine. But for me, just to say I'd rather err on the side of being hospitable and saying, you're welcome at, yeah, this is the Duval family table, but you're welcome at it. And when it comes to serving,

  (38:07):

  If the neighbors next door were over playing and Polly says, oh, leave it. Leave it my kids. The basement was already like that before your kids got over. And that parent's like, no, no, no. We want to help. We want to serve. We want to pick up. Am I going to stop and say, no, no, no. This is my family. This is our mess. Only the family members get to serve and pick up. I'm like, no, if y'all want to pick up our toys, more power to you. And I would say that to the folks who are regular attenders here who are not members, whether or not they're in the Duval fight, I'd say, look, whether or not you're a family member in the same way, if you want to help pick up our messes, I will absolutely let you, we'll take all the help we can get. So anyway, that's just another maybe analogy to shed light on some of how I think about that. Now, again, I'd say historically the blinds were too fuzzy for me and too blurry. Here at West Hills, we had people leading ministries, leading the welcome team, leading the women's ministry who weren't members. We had leading small groups. And so that's where I would say, man, when you're talking about

  (39:14):

  Leadership,

  (39:16):

  You better know that these are people. And of course there was still that relational thing where, yeah, we knew 'em, but gosh, if you can't swallow the membership covenant, should you really be leading in that kind of an invested ownership of the church kind of way? Good question. We're trying to find that middle ground. Anything else you want to add on that,

  (39:39):

  Austin? Yeah, I would just say on the life group and D groups, I think being in a position to have other people come into our orbit is important. We were talking just this week about getting people to come to church. I think your language on a Sunday was like, who goes to church anymore? Talking about evangelism and outreach in particular, and that we should, I think, really consider our small groups as being a pathway for people. Absolutely. Listen, this is a Bible study. You want to come, you don't have to come to the Sunday morning thing, and that'd be a great, there's

  (40:08):

  Dinner.

  (40:08):

  Yeah, there's dinner. Come sit around. Nobody's going to have you stand up and sing a song or whatever. And I think that there's a good role for that there.

  (40:16):

  I do. I do too. Especially because we are an equipping, discipleship focused church that's not using our Sunday mornings as the evangelistic like you bring and we introduce to the gospel, which we do. We do that too, but it's more, Hey, Sundays for me are for the believers, it's for the flock, it's for training them up to send them out to evangelize in the workplace, in the neighborhood. Because of that, all the more reason that to me, yeah, the small groups become more hospitable, more evangelistic. And I think especially in these days and age, like you said, who comes to church? Who wants to do that? But you might come over to someone's house and you might gather around, Hey, we're having some friends from church over around the fire pit. They don't have to know it's small group, but we're going to open the, but then now they meet the people and they're hooked. There's the relationship, there's the community aspect. I would love to see our small groups move even more in that direction where it's less of this kind of like Jill's getting at a members only club and more of a man. How can we

  (41:21):

  Draw

  (41:21):

  People down?

  (41:22):

  How can we do that?

  (41:23):

  And even if it's already a believer and not evangelistic, is that some people have come to our church and that move around that are coming from actual church hurt and have been emotionally, spiritually, tragically, possibly even physically abused. And they need to get a feel for is this safe? And I know if I had just been in an intimate kind of church relationship and been really hurt, it's going to take me a minute to be willing to just open up my heart all over again. And I want to give people time

  (41:52):

  To

  (41:52):

  Make sure that they know that this is a safe place for people to come and to be in relationship with other people.

  (41:57):

  I'm glad you mentioned that too, because other than the baptism, that's the other one where, yeah, we've definitely got a good handful of folks that have been here for three, four years now, and they're still just feeling it out. They're still just, are you safe? I mean, sometimes you yell at us on Sundays As a pastor, are you really somebody who safe to join your family? And you know what? Keep praying for them. Keep long suffering being patient with them. And also keep pleading and also keep emailing. You should join.

  (42:27):

  You're

  (42:28):

  Still welcome. There will be a day they're still welcome into the family. We want to adopt you. Are you ready? So anyway, but see all that. I appreciate Jill's heart, appreciate that heart for meaningful membership and the drawing of those lines. And yeah, thank you for the opportunity to just reflect on that this week.

  (42:49):

  And that's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills, dropping off your ask the pastors card from your bulletin or asking them online through our website at www.westhillsatt.org. And if you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. And join us next week as we discuss this question, the difference between the Baptist Church and our church. What's the difference between this church and the Baptist Church as a whole?

  (43:25):

  Presbyterians e Free

  (43:27):

  Denominations.

  (43:28):

  Yeah, denominations.

  (43:31):

  And we look forward to catching you next week.