The life of faith in Jesus is a journey meant to be taken in relationship with others. In 1 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul describes the church as a body made up of many parts. He writes,
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. “
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
The church is meant to be an interdependent group of people bound together by the Holy Spirit through their faith in Jesus Christ. No matter how gifted or well-trained any one person is, they cannot accomplish the purposes or bear responsibility for the church on their own. Every person in the church depends upon the others in some way.
At True North we seek to embrace this biblical truth that every person has a valuable role to play in the life of the church. Those in full-time ministry are not more important than the rest of the church-we are all ministers of the Gospel. Not all roles are the same, but we all learn from and depend upon one another to mature, to persevere, and to share God’s love with our community.
We want every member to have opportunities to develop their unique, God-given skills and contribute to the work we do together as the church. We do not want to simply fit people into the existing, predefined activities of the church, but rather allow them to explore ways they can best help us pursue the overall vision for the church.
In all we do together, our goal is to work together in the “more excellent way” Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. We work together in love for God and one another because “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7).
In his “Exploring Our Foundations” sermon series, Pastor Scott describes what we mean by Walking Together on the Journey.