Living Hope Fellowship
Membership 101
Presented by:
Living Hope Fellowship
PO Box 7602
Helena, MT 59604
http://www.mylivinghope.net
406-458-8604
Welcome to Living Hope Fellowship Membership 101!
Today you begin a journey into Living Hope Fellowship. By taking this course, you’ve committed yourself to learning about this church. Our desire is to try to share with you the vision and the heartbeat of Living Hope Fellowship. At the end of the course, you’ll be asked to make a step of commitment to become a member of this church. If you can buy into our vision and if your heart beats in similar rhythm as ours, it may be a great match as we walk the road of Christianity together. If not, the Lord Jesus Christ will lead you to the place where you establish yourself and ultimately make a commitment to serving and giving.
Special thanks go to everyone who has helped in this process we are embarking on: especially Serena Carley for constantly trying to read my mind and discover what I was trying to say and accomplish when I couldn’t express it very well myself – and to all of you who have allowed yourselves to be guinea pigs in this process of discovery.
It’s my heart’s desire that you find a place you can commit your life to, a place you can put down roots, a place where you can laugh and cry, argue and struggle, disagree and agree; a place where you can live life, grow and mature.
For the glory of Jesus and no other.
Pastor Tobe
Table of contents
1. Overview & Vision 4
2. Affiliation & History 5
3. Core Values: What we value 6
4. Church Structure: Local & Denominational 8
5. Membership 11/12
6. Leadership/Path to Position 16/18
Commissioning vs. Ordination 16/18
Core Leadership: 16/18
Team Leaders 17/19
Treasurer: 17/20
Deacons: 17/20
Care Team: 18/21
Elders: 19/22
Church Planters: 19/22
Assistant Pastor: 20/23
7. Teams 21/24
8. Church Discipline 22/26
9. Membership Covenant 24/29
Teach me good judgment
and knowledge;
For I have believed in thy commandments.
Psalms 119:66
1. Overview and Vision
Living Hope Fellowship Membership 101 Page 4 of 29
Version Date: August 2008
Overview
· Overview: Our Vision
· Affiliation & History
· What we Value
· How we’re structured: Local and Denominational
· Membership
· Leadership/Path to Position
· Christianity 101
· Membership Covenant
Handouts for the class:
1. Meeting Schedule
2. Membership Covenant
3. Membership 101 Booklet
4. Christianity 101 Booklet
Living Hope Fellowship Membership 101 Page 4 of 29
Version Date: August 2008
Our Vision
Our vision is to create a local church relevant to the community in which we live. That church and each person will grow in a variety of ways: spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially and numerically. We structure for a church size of approximately 80-120 people. As this numerical range is approached, it is our intention to train and send out those who will create a new church plant. Specific key goals include:
80-120 persons in average attendance giving us a base from which to:
· plant additional churches
· help support church plant(s)
· sustain local church and other ministry activities
· sustain local community activities
· sustain Montana Missions – the planting and assist the planting of other churches
Ultimately have a debt-free church building
· Set up non-profit status per denominational and IRS guidelines
· Set up corporate structure per denominational and IRS guidelines
2. Affiliation and History
“Called to be Free” Video
The Helena congregation of Worldwide Church of God was planted in the 1970’s by the Worldwide Church of God. It followed traditional Worldwide Church of God teachings and traditions such as meeting on Saturdays and Old Testament holy days and lifestyle habits.
In the late 1980’s, Joseph Tkach, Sr. moved to the helm of leadership within Worldwide Church of God and over the next several years, sweeping changes rolled through the denominational body as it struggled to move from Old Testament legalism to a New Testament grace-based organization. Across the world, families, friends, and local churches split as the denominational body came to grips with the far-reaching impact and freedom found in the good news of Jesus the Christ.
In Helena, as in many areas, the local church all but disintegrated. Within the ashes of the old existed a small group of people with a growing vision for a new church built upon the Rock of Jesus Christ.
In January, 1997, Tobe & Barb Johnson were placed in pastoral leadership to rebuild the local church. The first service consisted of seven people in attendance.
From the experimentation that occurred in the years to follow, a new local church arose. Over the course of time, the church adopted the name ‘Living Hope Fellowship’ and moved from renting a borderline cult-owned meeting hall on Saturdays to a traditional Sunday morning service in a building with full time usage. On Easter Sunday, 1999, the first outreach service was held in the small community of Garrison, Montana, which eventually became a house-church. The idea of Montana Missions took root.
Praise be to the God
and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy
he has given us new birth
into a Living Hope
through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead,
I Peter 1:3
3. Core Values: What we value
Following are core values of Living Hope Fellowship. These are the things we place great value in as a group of people and have committed to maintaining as primary focus for our fellowship.
Godly Leadership: We value Godly examples and while we recognize our leaders are human and make mistakes, we find it critical for leaders to be a Godly example in their life conduct and spiritual walk.
Biblical Based: We hold Scripture as the final authority on matters rather than church tradition or cultural perception. We seek to be innovative and flexible as long as we do not violate clear Scriptural principals. We believe the Bible is God’s inspired Word, authoritative and trustworthy. It is the primary tool for preaching and teaching of God’s word and is both relevant and timely in everyday practical use.
Commitment to Prayer: We believe that God desires His people to pray and that he hears and answers prayer. We integrate prayer into our ministries and activities in various relevant ways.
Inspiring Worship: We understand what we do is about the heart as much as anything else and one primary way God reaches the heart is through inspiring worship. As a result, we focus a high degree of energy and effort on inspiring worship.
Warm Fellowship & Acceptance: We emphasize God’s unconditional acceptance and full forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We value acceptance and graciousness – especially for new people, understanding that most need love and acceptance and someone to believe in them before they can grow to fulfill their God given potential. This may take the form of social outings, potlucks, meals, visitations, etc.
Life Development: We value changed lives and commit to developing programs, ministries, and teachings to aid in the personal, financial, emotional and spiritual development of growing members. This may take various forms such as small groups, one on one mentoring, classroom style teaching, drama, Sunday school, sermons, etc. This might include in-depth education from a Christian worldview on things such as creation, finances, childrearing, marriage, etc.
We understand that as people grow and explore new avenues of growth, service and development, they will make mistakes along the way. We graciously accept those mistakes as part of the growth process.
Family Centered: We value the traditional family unit of dad, mom and children. We will strive to provide an atmosphere that encourages and strengthens marriages and families.
Lay Ministry: We believe that every person is called to serve God – both inside and outside the church. As a result, we encourage everyone to serve in some area of church membership and leadership. Servant leadership by lay personnel is the rule, not the exception. Ministry will be placed in the hands of non-vocational workers. This will be accomplished through training and through practices which encourage lay initiation, leadership, responsibility, and authority in various church ministries.
Numerical Growth: Although numerical growth is not necessarily a sign of God’s blessing, and is not a sufficient goal in itself, we believe God desires for us to reach as many people as possible with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Anything healthy grows. Therefore, we will pursue methods that will facilitate numerical growth, without compromising our integrity and our commitment to biblical truth.
Oversight: We realize that the best and the most well intentioned get off track at times. We value some type of oversight at all levels. As a result, we voluntarily operate within an established local structure with a Senior Pastor as the final local leader. The Senior Pastor operates under the authority of a larger umbrella covering of a denomination or fellowship of churches. While we may modify the various ways of how day-to-day operations are structured, this overall organizational oversight structure should remain intact. We also recognize that we operate as part of a larger ‘city church’ and place value on cooperating and working in harmony with other expressions of the city church (churches, para-church ministries, missions, etc.).
Culturally Relevant: We recognize that to do our job, we must be relevant. While we don’t care if we look like or don’t look like other churches, we do care if we are relevant to the community to which we serve. We recognize that in some ways, we will be just the same as other churches and find that good. In other ways, we recognize that we may look very different than other churches. We also find that good. We are more interested in being real than looking or acting a certain way. Each church must evaluate the form in which they will take to be culturally relevant – to meet the needs of the culture and community.
Authentic Community: We believe in being real. Real people. Real life. Real mistakes and real problems. We value real relationships with people we enjoy being around. We will strive to create opportunities to help foster authentic community. This may take the form of small groups based around common interests, potlucks, social gatherings and events.
[Aspiration] Missions/Church Planting: We value missions and church planting as an authentic way of growing the Kingdom of Heaven. As a result, we actively recruit lay members and encourage them to start up new church plants and ministries. We commit to providing training and materials to help facilitate this process without trying to clone or ‘take over’ a new plant.
4. Church Structure:
Local and Denominational
Church structure is an agreed upon method of how a group of people work together to minimize conflict, accomplish goals and minister the truths about Jesus. Throughout bible times, Christians have held the desire to gather in organized groups (churches) as a core tenant of their faith walk.
The bible doesn’t give an exact blueprint for how church is to be structured. However, it does give numerous examples showing that it should have structure and be orderly. The Jerusalem church had apostles and elders. The church in Antioch had prophets and teachers (Acts 15:1; 13:1). Some New Testament passages call the leaders elders; others call them overseers or bishops; some just call them leaders (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:6-7; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:2; Heb. 13:17). In the Old Testament, we see a very hierarchical structure called for by God for Israel.
Paul describes a simple hierarchy when he tells Timothy to appoint elders and deacons in churches. As apostle, church planter and mentor, Paul had authority over Timothy, and Timothy had authority to decide who would be elders and deacons. But this is a description of Ephesus, not necessarily a prescription for every future organizational structure of the church. We do not see any attempt to tie every church to Jerusalem, or to Antioch, or to Rome.
Some say: “I don’t like structured religion.” Are we ‘structured religion’? Anytime two people gather together, you have a certain amount of structure. From that perspective, every church is ‘structured religion’. You may feel more comfortable with a greater or lesser degree of structure. The decision is not for/against ‘structured religion’, but what degree of structure you are comfortable with.
So what can we say for the church today?
v We can say that God does expect the church to have leaders and a certain amount of structure
v God does not specify what those leaders are to be called or how and to what degree a church is to be structured. He has left those details to be worked out in the changing circumstances that the church will find itself in.
v We should have leaders in local churches, but it does not matter so much what they are called: Pastor Pierce, Elder Ed, Minister Matson or Servant Sam might be equally acceptable.
v The Local Church is commissioned to grow, teach, discipline, love & grow disciples of Jesus Christ.
Churches commonly fall into one of three broad organizational models:
Episcopal: Overseen by an individual pastor, elder, leader Presbyterian: Governed by a group of presbyters, elders, board.
Congregational: Governed by the people/congregation
In the Worldwide Church of God, we use what can be called an episcopal model of leadership. The word episcopal is based on the Greek word for overseer--episkopos, and is sometimes translated as bishop. Our local churches have senior pastors which are ordained and licensed by the denomination and appointed, with a local church’s acceptance, to oversee a local church as it’s key person, set man or senior pastor. Our episcopal model has its strengths and weaknesses, as do all other models. However, this is the model which seems to work best for our organization.