Each Member Belongs to All the Others

We just finished up a 3-week sermon series looking at three of Waypoint’s values through the perspective of Jesus’ prayer in John 17.  One of the values that we looked at was Gospel Community and seeing how Jesus’ prayer for oneness set the foundation for the disciples (and us) of how to live in gospel community as a part of being a faithful local church.

Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” -John 17:11b

Ben shared in the sermon that Biblical “oneness” is defined like this: Because we are united to Jesus, we are united to one another. There is no other option for us as believers, and “oneness” is a key part of what it means to be a Christian and how we are to be a part of the Church.

When people want to join our local church, we ask them to attend two classes. The first is called Explore Waypoint, which is a chance to help someone get to know us as a church, and the second is called Next Steps which is a chance for us to get to know the people who desire to join our congregation. At the Next Steps class, we hand out two documents. One is a Covenant Member Commitment Card and the other is a single sheet of paper that contains a summary all the “one another” passages in the New Testament. We do this because we want every Waypoint Covenant member to make the “one another” commands of the New Testament the foundation for how we relate to each other as members of Waypoint and as members of the universal Church. This compliments the main Scripture passage we share at Explore Waypoint which we believe is a vital way to think about church membership and being a part of the local church. 

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”   -Romans 12:3-5

We challenge all Waypoint people to take some time this month to meditate, reflect, and pray through the “one another” commands of the New Testament. You can find a PDF here. 

We also want to invite anyone who is not in a Community Group or needs to make a change to a new group, to come out to our Community Group Fair this coming Sunday (Sept. 15) at 12:45pm right after the 11am service. If you cannot make the Fair but want to learn more about Community Groups please email Ben Uthe at ben@waypointrdu.com

Grace and peace,

Danny for the leadership of Waypoint Church