Hi Everyone,
We had a lovely Belong lunch after church on Sunday for a small group of people who are newer to our church. A couple of weeks ago, I emailed you a summary of the first half of what we talk about at Belong – what we think it means to belong to God. If belonging to God is the ‘vertical’ dimension of what we think belonging to church is all about, the second half is the ‘horizontal’ dimension – what we think it means to belong to one another. I wonder what you think it means to belong to our church?
At Belong, we talk about ‘belonging to one another’ meaning three things:
1. Belonging at Trinity Church Brighton means we belong to a local expression of God’s family. This is why we think belonging to our church means:
- We want to get to know each other. Our church is relational, so we want to be at the ‘family gathering’ on Sundays as often as we can, and ideally join in a growth group during the week as well.
- We want to help out. When you’re getting together for an extended family gathering, I’m sure it’s normal for people to pitch in to help with the food, the cleanup, whatever it might be. Similarly, at our church we hope that belonging to our church family means helping out by serving, as you are able so that we can meet together.
- We want to contribute. As a family might pool resources together to enable the family to thrive, so we also expect that belonging to our family will mean contributing to the costs of running our church, again as you are able, so that our church can be healthy and thriving.
2. Belonging at Trinity Church Brighton means we belong to a family with structure and leadership. A typical family might not need staff, or a leadership team, or formal supports and policies. But at this point in the Belong lunch we explain why we think these things are a valuable part of our church. We are a family but we’re also an organisation and are obligated to ensure we care for one another well with accountability and structure. (It’s worth saying that if you’d like to understand more about our structures please never hesitate to ask questions).
3. Belonging at Trinity Church Brighton means belonging to a family that is on mission together. This means that:
- We’re a rescue boat, not a cruise ship. At this point at Belong I explain that we don’t think of our church like a group of people all enjoying a cruise together. That might look like having a fun time, hanging out and doing some activities. But we wouldn’t be looking beyond ourselves, we’d just be cruising along together waiting to get to heaven. Instead, we think of ourselves more like a rescue ship. We are here for the sake of those who haven’t joined us yet, we’re working together so that people might have an opportunity to hear the gospel and be saved. And so that means we’re not just hanging out and having fun, we’ve got a job to do!
- We’re a partnering church. Here we talk about the different ministries Trinity Church Brighton partners with. Hasn’t it been wonderful, by the way, that in recent weeks we’ve heard from Craig from Engage Work Faith, Luke from BCSA, Mike from ES, and a few weeks ago K from CMS, who’s sending service is this Sunday. Our other partner ministry is Bush Church Aid, and we’ve got a visit scheduled from John Warner in September.
- We’re a sending church. Here we talk about being part of the Trinity Network, and our desire to send out people and to train ministry workers so that more churches would be planted, and more good ministry might be done, so that many may come to know Jesus.
As always, I’m looking forward to this Sunday’s family gathering! I hope you can be there.
Matt