“This church has enough Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, greeters, musicians…their boards are all staffed. There’s no place for me to serve. I have nothing to offer here that someone else isn’t already doing.”

I suppose this will be more immediately obvious to those who have attended larger churches than for the rest, but this is likely a familiar line of thinking. Have you ever felt you had nothing to contribute to the church you attend? Have you ever left a church because there was a need you could fill somewhere else?  What is there to do when you are one of dozens of church members not actively involved because all the serving roles are full?

“After all,” we reason, “Paul says we are all members of one body—hands, feet, eyes, organs—so there must be something for me to do here.” (1 Cor. 12:12-26) So maybe you ask around and probe in order to find something to contribute, or else you disengage and accept that that’s just the way things are here.

I have two questions about this:

(1) What does this line of thinking reveal about what we believe is the purpose of the church?

(2) Is this what Paul meant by the many-members-one-body illustration?

To feel you have nothing to contribute because there are no roles that need filled, or no jobs you can do, reflects a very particular belief about the purpose of the church, and that is this: The center of the church’s activities is the Sunday service.

This is, in no way, intended to put down those who feel they have nothing to contribute. Very often, if that is you, YOU did not choose this line of thinking, but it is what you picked up along the way in your church experience by observing others who live according to this principle, however consciously or unconsciously. As the saying goes with children, more is caught than is taught.

What I believe is often a sub-conscious thought process about the church functions goes like this: “We have pastors, deacons, trustees, a secretary, a youth group, a music director, musicians, a sound guy, and someone to read the announcements…now we can have a Sunday service.”  After all, if Paul says that we are all members of one body, then everybody has a part to play in this Sunday morning production. Everyone, from the pastor preaching the sermon to the person cleaning the bathrooms the night before. Everyone has a part to play and we need everyone.

But, what if that’s not what Paul had in mind when he said we are all members of one body?

What we believe the body’s main function is determines what we believe the members are supposed to do.

While Paul does speak about the church gathering—this is the context in which he gives the body illustration—we must not confuse the activity of gathering together for the purpose of the church.

Think very, very simply about this statement: The church is the body of Christ. The most simple, plain meaning is that the church is standing in physically for Jesus while Jesus is physically absent.  What was Jesus doing in the world when He was here? Glorifying His Father and making disciples. This is the same thing Jesus commissioned the church to do.  The church exists to glorify God and make disciples, which can also be glorifying God by making disciples. Both/and.

So if the center of the church’s activities is not the production of the Sunday service, but glorifying God and making disciples, what does that say about where you can and can’t serve? Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. spoke on this topic once when he commented something I resonate with very much: “I believe as a pastor my main job is to get people involved in other people’s lives.”

One of my favorite books, written by Australian pastors Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, is called The Trellis and the Vine: the Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything. In this book the authors use the analogy of gardening to explain what we frequently miss in Paul’s “body” analogy.

The basic work of any Christian ministry is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of God’s Spirit, and to see people converted, changed and grow to maturity in that gospel. That’s the work of planting, watering, fertilizing and tending the vine.

However, just as some sort of framework is needed to help a vine grow, so Christian ministries also need some structure and support. … As the ministry grows, the trellis also needs attention. Management, finances, infrastructure, organization, governance—these all become more important and more complex as the vine grows. In this sense, good trellis workers are invaluable, and all growing ministries need them.

The sad thing, as the authors point out, is that more often than not the trellis work takes over the vine work, and just as every trellis, if left unattended, is eventually left without a vine on it, if the support work is allowed to be the most important and central work in the church, there will be no vine work left.

So if the center of the church’s activities is “vine work,” or making and teaching disciples, preaching the gospel, glorifying God, etc., where does that leave the person who doesn’t know how and where to serve?

Here are a few practical ideas:

1. Pray. Pray long and hard for the ministry of your congregation. Pray for your pastors. They need this far more than you know.
2. Talk about stuff that’s real. When you come to the gathering of the congregation on Sunday morning, be there to worship God and to be real with each other. Talk about what’s most centrally important, or pray for God to change your heart about what is most important. If you’re the only one at your pew who wants to be real and candid and transparent, be the change you want to see. People need coaxed, surprised and sometimes shocked into being real and candid about what God is at work doing in your life and community.
3. Read the Bible with each other. This is a real, honest way of doing real, honest “gospel ministry.” Read the Bible with other people in the church (especially outside the church building). Pray with each other. Apply the gospel to each other’s lives. This is vine maintenance, and it is far more important than the color of the walls, the flower arrangements or setting up tables.
4. Spend time with unbelievers. Whether it’s after-work functions, or with your neighbors, or people you meet at the gym. Spend time and get to know non-Christians. Just build friendships. I’m not saying “Go be an extrovert.” I understand introverted people, like me, take a lot of time to get to know people and are uncomfortable meeting new people cold…however, far more people come to know Christ through a friendship with a Christian than any other way.
5. Read the Bible with unbelievers. This may be one of the most effective methods of evangelism. My recommendation is the book Evangelism for the Fainthearted by Floyd Schneider. A few in our church have been reading this and finding it very enlightening and confidence-building. You don’t have to know all the answers—your pastors certainly don’t—but if you get to know the gospel of John and you have a non-Christian friend who will tolerate it, try just reading it together. See what happens.

These are just a few ideas, and you may be wondering, apart from #2, what does any of this have to do with the Sunday service? Nothing, except for this: These things are what you come on Sunday to celebrate and thank God for.