Membership has privileges
I wonder how many of you have signed up for a free trial of something and then forgot to cancel it. Maybe it was an app or a magazine. I was talking to a friend who told me that her son is the member of a gym in Arizona, but he lives in Washington. I saw a tweet a few weeks back that said, “Forgetting to cancel the free trial has to be a billion-dollar industry.” It’s so true. This last week I had a free trial that turned into an annual member auto renew. So that means that I have now paid for two years of membership to a workout app that I am not using. Thankfully, it wasn’t a lot of money. But it caused me to go through all my apps and subscriptions and find all the things that I have joined on purpose or accident that I am no longer using. It is funny that it is so easy to join some things that we forget we are even members.
This weekend, we will welcome new members into the church. My hope is that they won’t forget they have joined the church like one might forget about a gym membership. Joining the church is unlike any other membership. While other memberships are programmatic and based on goods and services, church membership is like joining a family. As much as I’d like to think that Costco loves me like I am family, I know that’s not true. But in the church, it really is true! In Jesus Christ we are one family! Joining Chapel Hill is like saying that within the broader family of the global church, this is my immediate family.
Now, you don’t have to join the church to attend the church. But I’ve been a part of this family for 30+ years, and I can say that it’s a good place to call home. As we welcome our new members this weekend, I hope that those of you who are members of Chapel Hill will welcome our new members with joy! Invite them to your LifeGroup, serve alongside them, worship with them! And I hope that those of you who have wondered about what it looks like to be a part of Chapel Hill will consider coming to our next Chapel Hill 101 to get to know more about this family.
Pastor Julie Hawkins
Chapel Hill Gig Harbor
Title photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels