For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Hebrews 4:11-12
What does it mean to be an active member of your church? Perhaps the better question would be “what does it mean to be an engaged member of your church?” What difference does one word make, you might wonder? I can answer the question by saying that a person can actively go to the gym, every day, and never actually exercise there. Just like a person can go to the church every Sunday and still not be engaged. Who does that? The people who come to worship right around the time of the Lord’s Prayer and then sit for two hours in the hall socializing. They actively come but are completely disengaged from the life of the church.
In the book of Acts, Chapter 6: 1-3, we read:
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty.
We learn in these verses that the early church was concerned with two specific things—preaching the word of God and serving food to the poor. In other words, worship and philanthropy. If a person wants to be engaged in the life of the church, worship and philanthropy are two great places to start. I’ve written many times on the prayer team about the tendency to be consumers and not producers when it comes to our involvement in the church. A good church person will engage in both—they will learn and worship (consume) and they will teach and serve (produce).
Let’s put worship, philanthropy, consuming and producing together, and we’ll have the answer of how to be an engaged member of the church.
We first start with worship. Everything begins and ends at the Holy Altar. The MOST important thing done at the church is the Eucharist. If you are going to go to the church once a week, it should be for the Divine Liturgy. There are people in every church who “go to church” every week, except what they really do is go to dance practice or Greek school once a week. They go to the church property, but they don’t really go to church. The most important way to engage in the life of the church is worship.
The next most important way to engage in the life of the church is through learning. We can’t go teach and encourage others if we haven’t first learned ourselves. That’s why it is critical that we bring our children to Sunday school. And why adults should consider taking an adult class, like Orthodoxy 101, or attending a Bible Study. To make sure before we are good producers, we understand what is being produced.
The next most important way to be involved in the church is as a steward. A steward a caretaker. It is not an owner, or a stockholder. There are several important components to being a steward, not just the financial one that we usually think of first. The first way that one is a steward is with time. Time in worship, time in learning as described above. The most precious thing we have is time, because that is the thing we cannot get more of. Where we put our time, our talent and our treasure follow.
The next component of being a steward is talent. The purpose of the church is to produce disciples. A restaurant makes food. A shoe factory makes shoes. A church makes disciples. There are many roles that are needed to make sure this existential job gets done. People are needed to assist in worship, whether they are in the choir, an altar boy, an usher, a greeter, someone who cleans the church, etc. People are needed to teach—Sunday school, youth group, etc. People are needed to administer the church—make sure things are repaired, take care of buildings and ground, insurance, personnel, correspondence, etc. There are literally hundreds of talents needed to have a successful church, one that spreads the Gospel and feeds the hungry.
And speaking of feeding the hungry, this is where the stewardship of our treasure comes in. It is not enough for the church just to keep its doors open. That’s a pretty shallow existence, to say that our role is merely to self-perpetuate and self-sustain. The church exists for recruiting others and for philanthropy. And both of these require financial commitment. When the church has more than enough to sustain itself, then it can give to charitable causes. How blessed we are in the parish where I serve that we’ve committed a certain percentage of our budget to stewardship. Whether we have a good year or a bad one, charitable giving remains a top priority. To be engaged in a church means that we give joyfully and sacrificially. Nothing worthwhile happens without sacrifice in this life. And stewardship is no different. We can actively pledge just by filling out a form with a token amount on it. Engaged stewards give sacrificially and also with joy.
In discussing where we are and where we want to be in our faith, we can’t go anywhere in the faith without the church—because the church is the place we receive the sacraments, where we worship with others, where we learn and is supposed to be the home base from where we serve. If you aren’t where you want to be, evaluate your engagement in worship, learning, service and stewardship. Chances are getting engaged in one of these aspects of church life will move the needle from where you are to where you want to be in your Christian journey.
Lord, thank You for the gift of the Church, through which we receive You, learn about You, and serve You. Bless my priest (his name) and bless all the ministries of our parish (name any and all of them). Bless me as I take my place in the church, that I may come to worship with joy, that I may learn with purpose, that I may serve intentionally. Help me to be a good steward of my life as well as of Your church. Help me to not only be active but to be engaged in it as well. Amen.
As our verse today from Hebrews points out, the word of God is living and active. In order to grow in our faith, we must be living and active in it as well.
