What does it mean to be a member of Mosinee United Methodist Church? People ask me this once in a while. There’s a technical answer with a spiritual impact. The Methodist church recognizes three kinds of members:
Preparatory members are children and youth who have been baptized in the congregation but have not yet gone through confirmation and taken on personal responsibility for their faith and their role in the church.
Constituent members are people connected to our church, but who aren’t able (or don’t want) to participate fully in the life of the congregation. Some are young people away at college. Others no longer live in the area but haven’t found a new church. Many constituent members are “C&E Christians” – we see them mainly at Christmas and Easter.
Sometimes constituent members just want the comfort of a church connection – someone to marry and bury ‘em. I served a church once with 25 people in Sunday worship but 300 people on the constituent list… because church members could get a cemetery plot for $50, and non-members paid $400! I guess if you are only going to show up to church once, you might as well make it count! J
Professing members are the backbone of the Methodist Church. These members have professed their faith in Jesus Christ before the congregation, either at confirmation or when they joined the church. They have made a vow, a promise to participate fully in the life of the church and the Body of Christ.
We all renew our vows during every baptism, confirmation, and reception of new members. The promise has five parts: to “faithfully to participate in the ministries of our church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness” (UMH p.38).
Those are five important promises, and we will explore them more during September in a sermon series called “Faithful x5.” It’s going to be exciting… filled with surprises, celebration, and even pirates one Sunday! If you want to read more right now, check out http://www.mosineeumc.org/support/
One more thing about professing members… we promise to support not just our local church, but The United Methodist Church around the world. For every professing member, Mosinee UMC pays a portion of the mission cost of the global church. This “apportionment” works out to about $100 per professing member!
If this all sounds kind of technical, think about it from a spiritual point of view. The greatest commandment is “The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” (Mark 12:29-30 NLT) Another way of saying heart, soul, mind, and strength is prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness. Giving all our best to God is an all-in kind of experience. We profess our faith in God not just by words, but by our complete lives.
I should add that we have some folks who actively worship and support the church, but who aren’t members. I think of them as practical members. In the end, whether you are a professing member, or a regular attender, the Christian life is a practical life – hand-on love, heads-up participation, all-in generosity.
– Pastor Park