March 22, 2026 | Built by Every Part
Built by Every Part | Ephesians 4:1-16
Ephesians 4:1–16
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (ESV)
In “Built by Every Part,” Jed Gillis teaches from Ephesians 4:1–16 that Christ has already made His people one, so the church is called to maintain that unity with humility, patience, love, and truth. Christian community is not something believers create through programs or consume like customers. It is something they cultivate as members of one body under one Lord. God gives grace to His church both through leaders who equip the saints and through every believer, since each person has a part in the work of ministry and the building up of the body. The sermon calls believers to move past a spectator mindset and take part in the life of the church through prayer, regular gathering, deeper relationships, service, giving, and hospitality. As every part does its work, the body grows into maturity in Christ and is built up in love.
Transcript of Built by Every Part | Ephesians 4:1-16
Burdened for Connection
Jed Gillis: This morning we're gonna be in the book of Ephesians, chapter four. As we do that, children, if you're headed out the door to Children's Church, you can go ahead and head out the back. You're also welcome to stay in here with us.
Ephesians chapter four. One of the things that I find often I, I have conversations as a pastor. You talk with people about church. Often it's what you do, and I talk with people around Knoxville and other places, but I, I hear a lot of people here around Knoxville and I'll hear one of two conversations very, very often. I'll hear sometimes people who are just thrilled to death, they're really plugged in and love their church. And I'll hear this other story often from people who say, well, I've been at whatever first church of somewhere. Doesn't matter what church it is. I've been at this church for two years, five years, 10 years. And I'm just not really connected. And they'll say, I'll show up. I'm kind of around, but I, there's nobody who really knows me who can help me to grow. There's nobody who can really provide a lot of direct shepherding or accountability. There's not a lot of deep relationships. I'm just not very connected to the body that's there.
And so really this morning, part of what I want to say comes from a burden of hearing those conversations often. My prayer is that people here at Berean wouldn't feel like that. My prayer is that if somebody new comes into Berean and is here for two months, two years, five years, they wouldn't feel like, well, I'm just not that connected.
And this is particularly important for us at Berean right now because God has brought many new faces to this room, and I'm grateful for that. That's wonderful. We're so glad for that. But the ways you connect people when you have a group of a hundred people in a room are a little different than when you have almost 200 people in a room.
We have to think through, how do we help people connect to the body here at Berean as God gives more people, and that's our prayer, that God would give more people, more faces would come in, more people, hearts that we can minister to and shepherd and walk alongside. We desire for God's kingdom to go forward, to spread, and we want to help others who come in and help ourselves to be truly, deeply connected with the body of Jesus Christ that meets here at Berean.
Reading Ephesians 4
Jed Gillis: So I wanna read from Ephesians chapter four, beginning in verse one. Paul says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he let a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he had also descended into the lower regions the earth. He who descended one, who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. It when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Three Principles
Jed Gillis: There's a lot in that text. It's a beautiful text and we won't touch plenty of things that are there, but I want you to think about three principles from this text for the way that we connect about Berean.
We Do Not Create Community, We Maintain It
Jed Gillis: The first is this. We do not create community or connection or unity. We don't create community, we maintain it.
If you read verse three, he says that we are supposed to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit. What defines our unity as a body of believers is not our programs. It's not our opinions, it's not our preferences. It's not a whole long list of things. What defines our unity is that we have one spirit who unites us to Jesus so that we rest in the grace that's been given to us by God. That's ultimately what makes us one community, and that's who we are. We are a worshiping community that approaches God by one spirit through one savior. That's unity.
When we say we want to have community, we want to have connection. We aren't saying that we have no connection as believers here, and therefore we need to create it. We're saying God has already done what is necessary for believers to unite in true community. We maintain that.
That means things like the way we talk may sound different. Our cultural background may be different. Our ethnicity may be different. Our preferences may be different. Our entertainment may be different. Our hobbies may be different. Our politics may be different. The way we dress may be different. But are we united in Jesus? That's the unity. And the only community really worth saying, we as a church are, we are going to preserve the community we have in Jesus Christ.
You don't create community. No program can do that. We can't sit here and come up with a program that's gonna put a group of people here to be wonderfully united and have everybody feel connected. No program can accomplish that. What we do is we cultivate it.
That means God gave us a treasure that in this room, and I don't know everybody's heart in this room, but for every genuine believer in this room, God has already connected you to all the other believers who are sitting here because you approach one throne by one spirit through one Lord. We don't create community. We cultivate it.
We Don't Consume Community, We Cultivate It
Jed Gillis: Here's a second principle. We don't consume community, we cultivate it. So the response on our end is the same we cultivate. But I wanna draw your attention to this thought. Notice what characterizes our pursuit of community. He says, we walk with humility, with gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love. You get down to the last section of this and he says, speaking the truth and love, we grow up. We as a body grow up in every way into the head who is Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.
We don't come and consume community just like you don't have a part of your body that merely consumes good for your body, but doesn't do anything. The body functions the way it's supposed to so that the whole body grows. That's the picture that we have before us.
We don't consume community. Like if you were to go into Sam's Club, you show up as a consumer. You show up, you walk in, you think, do they provide a product or service that I want in at a price that I'm willing to pay, and if they don't, you leave. And you don't sit here and think Sam's really isn't doing what they ought to do, so I'm gonna make sure I help them. Right. That's, that's not the way we approach things. When we come as a consumer, we don't come thinking, how am I a part of making this community what it ought to be? We come saying, that's a community. Do I, do I wanna participate or not?
We don't come to consume community, we come to cultivate it. One of the things that means practically is that whatever berean as a church is going to be, it's going to be that because its people are that. Right? Berean, if it Berean is a friendly assembly of people, that's because the people in Berean are friendly.
The chairs aren't gonna do it for us right now, if we go to somewhere like Chick-fil-A, for example, not today. I know they're close, so don't get hungry. But if you go to Chick-fil-A and you say, well, the workers at Chick-fil-A, they're friendly. So Chick-fil-A is a friendly place. Why? Because the workers are that. But there's also a lot of consumers, customers who sit at Chick-fil-A. You don't think about whether they're friendly or not when you show up. That's not what defines what Chick-fil-A is because you come as a consumer, unless of course you're working there, and then it's different.
See, when we come to church, I think very often one of the reasons people stay at a church for a while, enjoy some opportunities that are there, and then they feel five years later, like they're not very connected, is because they've come as a consumer. They've come and said, I like the show. I like the programs. I like the services. Okay, good. The church is what I want it to be, but it's at arm's length from what I am.
And so God is not calling us to come as consumers to watch Berean be something. Or if you're visiting with us today to watch whatever church you attend to be something. Then for us just to sit back as consumers, but instead to say, how do I as a joint of the body that needs to work properly to help the body grow? How do I do that?
In other words, this changes the question. When I say, how can you connect with your local church? The question is not how can the church do all of these things so that I can come as a consumer and feel connected. You go to Chick-fil-A, you might feel connected because they say, you know, my pleasure and all those things, and they speak politely to you. You might feel connected as a consumer in one sense, but that's not what God's called his church to be.
Another thing that I think is interesting in our world today, when we go online, most of our communities. Which aren't really communities 'cause they're digital, but that's fine. Most of our communities are determined by an algorithm, right? It's the things you happen to see. You go on Facebook and you see the things that are close to what you've liked before and you know how it goes. You do one Google search for something random, and that's all the ads you see for the next week because the algorithm determines what you see. Many times I think we approach church similarly. We say, here's the thing that's right in front of me right now, here's the challenge I have. If I go to a church as a consumer, well, they didn't seem to talk about my problem this week. I guess that's the, it's not the right place. I don't feel connected. Because we're so used to these online communities that talk about exactly whatever you just Google searched. But that's not the kind of body, group, community that we have in the church that Jesus Christ has put together.
So the first thing is we don't create community, we maintain it. Second thing is you don't come to consume community. You come to cultivate it. You are part of creating community.
God's Grace Comes to You Through the Community Around You and For the Community Around You
Jed Gillis: Here's the third big principle from Ephesians four. God's grace comes to you through the community around you and for the community around you. Notice when he says back in Ephesians four and verse seven, he says, grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Then he goes on to describe, he has this section where he talks about apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers. Now there's a ton of stuff we could talk about there. There's lots of controversy we could go into there. We're not gonna get into all of those things. We're gonna say, at least it says this much. It at least says God has given apostles and prophets, certain foundations of truth, of revelation from God that we look back and say, the apostle Paul wrote this and we have confidence in it 'cause God inspired his apostles, so at least he gave apostles and prophets so you have definite truth. He gave evangelists people who are gifted in their their abilities and desires and situations to spread that good news. And he gave what we'll call shepherd-teachers.
Now, I know in your English Bible it looks like two things, shepherds and teachers. It's really best thought of as like a hybrid. The way the grammar works here, it'd be like hyphenating it. He's saying there's apostles, there's prophets, there's evangelists, and then there's shepherd-teachers.
That's what pastors or elders are. When I called up elders earlier, that's what those men are. They're serving in an office as shepherd teachers. That's the primary role for elders, is to take initiative to shepherd and teach.
That's different from, in our context, we have deacons whose primary role is, is a service component. There's still a leadership component that's there, but a service in practical functional things like finances, things like facilities, things like family aid. That's how those, the deacons do that work and do it well. I'm grateful for them and they focus there so that shepherd-teachers, elders. Can have this kind of initiative taking, caring for the spiritual health of the body in the word and prayer.
God has given those roles. And by the way, those are the two offices of the church given in the New Testament. We have other things like mission's ministry team, women's ministry team, men's ministry team. We have, uh, children's church workers and youth leaders and all these different factors, like different offices that we establish. Those aren't the ones God established. Those are the ones that we practically put in place for the function of the body. Those are good. God gave us elders and deacons scripturally and gave us qualifications and what their focus is supposed to be. And so he says God has given grace by giving leaders. Why? Verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
Now, if this were, if Paul were trying to say a consumer way of looking at church, what he would say is that God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers so that people could come and enjoy it, so that people could come and have their needs met.
Now, hopefully that's true. Hopefully needs are met and hopefully there's joy. But that's not what he says. He says he gave grace to leaders in order to equip the saints for the work of ministry. We're not supposed to be a set of employees and then a set of consumers. That's not what the body of Christ is.
That is what you see in every business. You go enter, but that's not what church is. What church is, is gifted people in a million different ways that God has put together so that we all do the work of ministry, that we build each other up. You see, Paul goes there at the end of this section when he says, the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly. He emphasizes it multiple times. Every piece of this works together. God gives grace in giving leaders to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. God also gives grace in the gift that he gives when he says in verse seven, grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of God's gift.
Why did God give you the gifts he gave you? He gave it to you for the body around you. Yes, it's for you. Yes, you enjoy God through those gifts. Wonderful. But God gives grace both through community. You receive His grace as people who are gifted, engage with you as leaders, equip you for the work of the ministry. As brothers and sisters encourage you. He gives you grace through the community.
He also has given, if you're here as a believer in Jesus, I don't care if you're nine or 90, or anywhere in between or outside of that in case somebody wants to be technical. Whoever you are, if you have the spirit of God, you have God's gifts for a reason to build the body so that each joint working properly, working the way God designed it, the way God gifted it builds the body up in love.
God gives grace both through and for community.
The Trellis and the Vine
Jed Gillis: Now I want to give you a picture. It's been really helpful to me. It comes from a book called The Trellis and the Vine. So shocker, it's a picture of a trellis and a vine. Um, it's about church and really the point is that we have certain things at church that function like a trellis.
We're all familiar with a trellis. If you wanna plant to grow, you wanna a certain kind of plant to grow. You need some kind of structure for the plant to climb up and for the plant to work on.
So you have things like programs. You have things like buildings. You have organizational things that are like a trellis, they're good.
But if I come to your house and you have this absolutely ornate, wonderful looking trellis, and then I look down at the bottom and there's this little dying plant, then we think that that's not what that's for.
And in our context as a church, there are program things. There's trellis things that can be very good and that are necessary to support the vine, but if the vine dies, and in my story earlier, the conversations I have with people, somebody says, I've been here for five years, everything runs smoothly. I like it, I show up. It's a good show. All those things. But, I'm not connected. I feel like I'm dying. I would say that is a piece of the vine that's unhealthy, that needs to be connected to the vine. The trellis isn't gonna save that. It's the vine. It's the people doing the work of the ministry, encouraging one another to love God, encouraging one another when life is d. Counseling one another, helping one another. That work of the ministry, that's the vine working.
And when we think about church like that and we say, I'm not really connected. We're coming as a consumer, and it doesn't matter if I go to the YMCA and work out, it doesn't matter if I'm connected to the other people. That's not why I'm there. But the way Ephesians four talks about this, it does matter if I'm connected to the other people because every part, every joint is equipped exactly the right way so that the body grows up in maturity.
So three principles. We don't create the community. God already did that. In Jesus. We maintain it. We don't come to consume community. We come to cultivate it, to help it to grow, to flourish and God Give has given through community and for the community around you.
A Roadmap to Developing Community at Berean
Jed Gillis: In light of those three principles from Ephesians four, what I want to do, and this really is reflection of of the elders retreat from about a month ago, some of the things that we talked through and thought through. We are supposed to be a worshiping family that cultivates community and connection. If we look around at new faces and say, we really want you to be connected into this body well. How do we do that?
And I'm gonna suggest a call it a roadmap, a plan to say, if you were brand new, this is the first time you ever stepped inside Berean's doors, how would you try to go about connecting?
I wanna give you some suggestions. I'm gonna give you six things. Before I do that, I want to say you might feel truly connected and say, oh, I don't do one of those things. Is that a problem? I, I understand. You might feel really connected. You might be really connected without doing all of these things actively right now.
This isn't a checklist like, oh, I did it all. Now I'm good. That's not the point. What it is, is a point that if you're, whether you've been at Berean for a long time and feel very connected. Or you're somebody who's brand new. It's some a way for you to look at your involvement with church and say, I want to be vitally connected, like the body is supposed to be in Ephesians four. What do I do? How do I go about it?
Pray Expectantly for Berean and Its Membersz
Jed Gillis: So here's the first thing. Pray expectantly for Berean and its members. Pray. If you thought these were gonna be hard, most of them aren't, but we forget sometimes. I don't really go and pray for the health of the Sam's Club when I walk in. I really don't. Maybe you do good for you, but I don't because I, I'm not looking to connect with them. I want a product.
Pray for Berean and its members, and I say it that way on purpose. Pray for Berean as an organization. But also pray for specific people in Berean.
And I said, pray expectantly. Because if you look back right before our text, the last part of chapter three, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, and to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. When you pray for Berean or for its people, do you pray expectantly that he can do more than you ask or think?
That's the way Paul prayed. He prayed that there would be things that we couldn't even imagine. I hope you pray that way. I hope you pray for things you can imagine and you'd be excited about. But I hope you pray, saying, God, you can do even better than that. 'cause that's exactly the God we serve.
And in fact, I'd even say it this way, if God can't do more than you can imagine, we really shouldn't be here. 'Cause the whole point of being here is that we are a worshiping community. Like we're here to recognize that God is above us. He's greater than us, he's more valuable than us, he's more wonderful than us. So pray expectantly. God can do more than you would ask or think here at Berean and here in the people sitting right next to you and in your life through Berean and through the people sitting next to you.
The first thing is pray. One of the things that we as elders have done that we want to make you aware of, uh, is we've, we've just created essentially a a care list. What we've done is taken people. If you're here and you've regularly been here, your name's on that list, and if you're new here, we'd love to put your name on that list. And the point is that we, as elders say, each elder is thinking about a certain group of people within the body because we are shepherd teachers. That's what we're supposed to be. Especially as we grow, especially as new people come in, it's possible someone comes in and we don't know them yet and we don't know that they need to be shepherded. And sometimes what happens in churches is that goes on and on and on and on.
And before long you have a conversation I had with somebody recently who'd been at a church for seven years and they were having some spiritual struggles. And I said, is there somebody who can shepherd you? And they said, no, that's sad. We don't want that to be the case, so we want you to know that's some of what we're doing is saying we're going to intentionally take a list of people who attend and say, we wanna make sure we have regular touches with you. Nothing intimidating, nothing weird, just saying we want to care for you, and we don't want people to slip through the cracks of shepherding.
That's one way we're being intentional about praying for Berean and its members. As elders, we do that. You could do a similar thing on church app. You have a church directory. You could just go down a list and pray for people. But the first step is pray.
Attend Regularly
Jed Gillis: The second, which might be the most obvious piece of advice, is attend regularly. And I, I know that it is obvious, but I think it cuts against the grain of our consumer culture, which says, I come and I get whatever product I'm looking for. Sam's doesn't care if I come every other week or every week or every month as long as I buy the product, but that's because I'm coming as a consumer. If you work at Chick-fil-A, they do care how often you show up because you're there, not as a consumer, but as part of this organization that brings health.
Attend regularly. If you want to connect, you want to say, I don't wanna be five years down the road and feel like I'm not connected. How can I do that? Well, there's a tremendous spiritual benefit in the body gathering together. When we sing, my heart is encouraged.
When, I remembered a, a story, I went to a, a conference with this young man who had, was a fairly new believer. He was maybe 21, 22, something like that. And he had grown up not in Christianity. And he had been in public school context, working secular jobs. He had a church that he attended. There were 180 people or so in the church. We went to this conference where there were 10,000 people and they were singing together and everybody you walked past was having a spiritual conversation.
And the thing, it didn't even, it, it was great. It didn't register with me the same way it did with him. What he did though is he kept walking. I can't believe there's this many people. This is incredible. All these people are worshiping Jesus? He'd never seen it. Something about gathering in the same place meant something to him.
Something about seeing your brothers and sisters and I would argue it's even, yes, 10,000 people is very impactful, but I think it's even more impactful when you're not. It's not so much the 10,000, it's when you look out and you see the brother or sister that you know they're hurting, you know, life's hard, you know, it's been difficult. You know, some of their pain and you say They still worship God.
We attend not as a consumer. But because when we gather, we're adding our voice to the cloud of witnesses saying Jesus is worthy. So if you wanna feel connected, attend regularly.
Lemme say a quick word on livestream. I know some of you're probably watching on livestream today. I'm glad we have livestream. That's wonderful. I'm glad that you can use it. You're outta town, you're sick. There are times when you can't attend for various reasons. Totally understand.
My concern with it, and many people's concern with it is as soon as you can go online and log in, it can feel like a consumer. I'm here to consume the message now. I'm glad we have it. We're not planning to shut it down. Nobody panic. But at least when you watch livestream, I hope you think this just isn't as good. I'm just not able to be a part of the body the same way when I'm watching live stream, so I'd encourage you attend regularly.
And also make space to actually connect with people. One of the reasons we have our schedule like we do where we have a Sunday school time from nine to 10, and we have 30 minutes before the service starts. That then that 10 o'clock to 10 30 time becomes a great opportunity for fellowship. If Sunday School ran right up until say, 10 25 and we all ran in here, we wouldn't have the same opportunity. Maybe you attend Sunday school, I'd invite you to say, do that and then come and be part here.
But even if you say, I'm not coming to Sunday school this morning, I'd encourage you come at 10 in fellowship with people in the, in the lobby. It's a great way to, to be more connected. To have chances to be the body. It's not everything the body is, but it's a way to take steps.
Again, this is a roadmap. If you first time in the room, what would I tell you to do? I'd say pray for brien and attend regularly. It's a good step.
Pursue At Least One Way to Go Deeper in Relationship and Study
Jed Gillis: Here's a third step. Pursue at least one way to go deeper in relationship and study.
So we have various ways to do this in our context. And you might do more than one of these. That's wonderful. That may be exactly right for you. You might pick one of them, pursue at least one. That would be something like our Berean Bible Institute classes, our Sunday school classes. That's an opportunity to learn the word more and to connect with a smaller group of people.
Our Wednesday night Bible studies, men's and women's studies that go on, that's a great opportunity to come and see. Here's a smaller group of people that I actually get to talk with. I get to connect with them. Or we have our, our community groups, our small groups.
We have called them care groups in the past, just so you know, we're gonna call 'em something else. That's not, because we're saying we don't care for people anymore, that's not the point at all. The point is that sometimes it's confusing because, uh, there are places that use care group to sound more like a specific support group. Like you might have a widow care group, which is to say there's support for widows in a specific context. Or you might have a divorce care group that says when you're going through divorce, there's a specific kind of support that's there. And what really happens in our small groups, our goal is that we would cultivate genuine community. So we're gonna call 'em community groups. So you'll see that.
And if you notice on your bulletin, there's also something there. There's something you can do to respond specifically this week as we are looking at community groups as God has given us growth and opportunities then for more people to be connected, we need more groups.
Some of you are already in community groups and you say, yeah, and ours is really packed. That's right. And we need more groups. We need opportunities because this is one of the primary ways outside of Sunday morning, where you can build relationships, where you can have men and women, family units or single adults, kids, everybody joins together and connects and gets to know one another. We build spiritual community in this context.
These have already been happening here, but they've sometimes, some of you have noted, especially if you're new, it's kind of hard to find exactly how do I get involved. So we wanna fix that problem. So one of the things you'll see, and I'll invite you to respond this way today on your bulletin if you're interested, if you're not currently attending a community group and you would be interested in it. I'd invite you on the little tariff part. You can put your name, put a way to contact you, and then just check. I'm interested in attending a community group, and then you can put it in the giving box back there. You give it to me or one of the elders, Jon, on your way out, one of us will get it all in the right place.
There's a second one on there because you can't have community groups that meet in people's homes without people opening their homes. So if you'd say I'd be interested in, in maybe hosting one, I'd at least like to find out more information. This is for the record, not a contract, so we're not holding you to that. It's an interest. What we'd like to do is really based on numbers. If everybody said how, or a lot of people say we wanna join a community group. We need probably one, two, maybe three, depending on how we split them up, new groups to cover the number of people around Berean.
So I'd ask you to pray whether you'd say I'd be interested in being part of it or hosting you. I'm sure there's a lot of questions that could come up. You could say what's involved in hosting. It's basically just opening your home. You don't have to provide all the food. You don't have to provide food at all, depending on when you meet. It might be that you do a potluck. It might be that that's coordinated.
We have a lot of different ways, different groups function in different ways with that, and we're glad to help you walk through that. It's really just, if you're saying, I'm gonna host, it's saying, I'm willing to have a group of people at my home. You say, how many people would that be? I don't know. That's the hard part.
It starts as a small group and then hopefully it grows because you and other members of your group invite people into it. It, and then it gets uncomfortably stretched and then you split it. That's the model, so that we don't want to do this just so that people in this room feel good about ourselves.
That's the consumer mentality. I have. Good. I have a lot of relationships. Good. I'm set. No, we actually want to do it so that other people are drawn into community, so we need to spread, split, and draw others in. Invite them in. So I don't know how many people it would be, but I do know this. If you'd start at a size that's manageable, you'll get up to a point that feels a little uncomfortable and we'll split it. You don't have to keep growing. So I'd invite you to do that.
You say, do I have to be able to like lead a Bible study to host a community group? The answer is no. You might be able to do that, and that's a conversation we could have. But really it's just opening your home and we as elders, we want to make sure we are both leading groups at times ourselves, and then also equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
So looking to say maybe this brother over here can't host for whatever reason, but they can lead a group. Good. We'll coordinate those things, so I invite you to put that on, on the tear off on your bulletin. You can do that. You can fill it out today. I also would imagine if that's something you're potentially interested in, you'd say, I really need to talk with my spouse before I sign this. Good call. Good choice. You can turn it in this week if you want to. You can turn it in next week as well, or the week after that we'll say so through Easter. Any of those times, if you turn it in, we'll compile those and we'll get back with you.
Again, this is not every step to connect and you don't have to host a community group to be part of connecting. But it helps people be able to say, what is one way I can go deeper in my relationships with people here at Berean and in my study of God's word?
So that's three things. Pray, attend regularly. Find one way to go deeper. We have options. One way to go deeper in relationship.
Find One Way to Serve
Jed Gillis: Fourth one, find one way to serve, one practical way to serve alongside God's people to do work of the ministry. Because helping the vine grow, helping the body grow is worth it. It's worth the effort.
And I know there are many of you who serve in like 45 different ways, and I'm really grateful for that. I'm not saying you need to make sure you pick up more ways to serve. I am saying if you don't serve in some capacity or if you say, I really would like opportunities to do more, we have those opportunities. And we'd love to have you be part of it. I'm gonna give you a couple options real quick, just running through a quick list. You could also on that tear off sheet, if you said there's not a blank for it, but if you said there's one of those I'd be really interested in learning more about, you could just jot that down on there. We'll get back with you as well on that. But there are many ways to serve.
You could serve in children's ministry in a variety of ways. Children's Church, one of the things as we've grown is we've, we've split the children's church class because when you start to have like 20 kids in between three and eight or so, that gets to be a difficult class. So we split that. That means that there's more need for volunteers. There's nursery opportunities, oh, I should say, on Children's Church. We've also changed the curriculum. Part of that is to make it a little bit easier if you say, I'm not really good at making up all my own stuff. We've changed that, which hopefully makes it easier for more people to be involved in leading children's church. If you have questions about that, please do come talk to us.
You could serve in youth ministry. You could serve in our Grace Marriage ministry. There's opportunities there for childcare, for support. A lot of different ways that you can help to serve, to walk alongside people.
Now here what I'm saying, I'm not saying here's a checklist for how you should live. Good, thank you. We're moving on. Here's a way to be a good consumer. That's not my point. What I'm saying is, if you want to be connected, you don't get connected by sitting and consuming. You get connected partly by serving alongside others. You could serve in music team, missions, ministry, women's ministry, men's ministry. I'm sure I'm gonna leave somebody out and they're gonna feel mildly offended. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to leave you out. There's a whole lot of ways, if you wanna be connected, I would say come talk to us. Let's talk about how you're gifted and how God has led you, because we want you to be able to serve, to build up the body exactly the way Ephesians four says.
There's one specific way I'll mention here, which is on the, the tear out as well. The last checkbox. You say, wait, what's connect team? I don't know what that is. As we have more people come here, one of the things we want to do is be more intentional about connecting with visitors and newcomers. This could look like greeting people. It can look like talking with them and saying, oh, you should meet this person. I'm gonna go introduce you to them. It, but it helps to have some people who are intentionally thinking through how do we connect with people on the front end when they first come and visit us when they're here for two weeks. When you have, you know, a hundred people sitting in a room, you pretty much recognize you go. Everybody just looks around and goes, that's a new person. Maybe you've had the experience. You walk up to somebody at church and go, oh, are you new here? And they say, no. I've been attending for, you know, two years. I've done that.
That kind of thing happens, right? So to have a group of people who would say I'd be interested in meeting new people and connecting them into the body, we'd love to organize that and plan the way things work in our lobby. Plan the way some of those follow ups work. If you'd be interested, interested in some follow up, just interested in con conversation with us, if you check that and you can put that in as well, we'd love to have you be part of it.
So pray, attend regularly. Find one way to go deeper in relationships and study things like community groups. Find one way to serve.
Giving to Berean
Jed Gillis: Fifth thing, which we already mentioned a little, but I wanna put it here, is give to Berean. Now I say it here because the point that I want to make isn't exactly the same one we made earlier. There's financial needs. We need people to meet it. That's true. That's real. That's not really the extent of why I put it here though. The reason I put it here is because Jesus said where your treasure is there, your heart will be also, Jesus said where you put, he wasn't only talking about money, but it's included. Where you put your money is where you'll be emotionally invested.
Some of you know this, some of you, uh, do stock market investing. As soon as you buy a hundred shares of something, you care about that a whole lot more. Before that, you didn't even care what that company was, but your money's there, you're invested. It's different.
So I'd encourage you if you say, I want to be connected, and I recognize there are times that you say, I really can't, I can't give financially right now. I understand that. Not saying any of these things are like you must do them all the time. They're not a checklist for righteousness. What they are is saying, what's God's plan for members of the body to connect with the body, to be truly connected in community, regularly giving so that where your treasure is there, your heart will be also is part of it.
Give and Receive Hospitality
Jed Gillis: And the last thing I'll say is this, give and receive hospitality. If you wanna really be connected with people in your local body, make a plan to have 'em in your home, and when they invite you go, that should be obvious, I think. But just in case, give and receive hospitality, this is part of the way you connect with others.
I would encourage you, it doesn't have to be extreme. You don't have to be the best homemaker or the best chef in the world. That's not the point. It's not showing off. The point is make some kind of plan to intentionally connect with brothers and sisters in the church. Invite 'em to dinner. If you don't want to take 'em to your house, take 'em, go to a restaurant, go eat together, go to coffee, have 'em come to your home.
Have of some kind of intentional plan. Again, we don't create community, we cultivate it. This is one of the ways you can cultivate it. You invite people into your home, make a plan to say once a quarter. Once a month, whatever it is, we want to connect with other people and we just wanna find out more about them. We just want to grow that relationship so that that community, that connection feels more real because it is, you're cultivating it, it's stronger. The vine is growing, it's connecting to itself.
Conclusion
Jed Gillis: Now, I think. If somebody who's a genuine believer comes to a local body and they commit to pray to attend regularly, have one way to go deeper in relationship, one way to serve, they give, and then they extend hospitality to God's people around them. I don't think you'll get five years down the road and say, oh, I'm just not really connected.
I don't think that conversation will happen because the whole point of this is, this is the way God designed his church to work. It's not about legalism. What it is is saying Ephesians four really is the way God wants it to happen, so that these words would be true. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way.
Into him, who is the head, even Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Whatever the God who can do all things and can do more than we can imagine. Whatever he does with Bere and Bible Church, it will be because each part. By the power of God's spirit is building up the body. That's God's plan, and so I invite you to pray over those things. I invite you to pray and to think as others, come and join our body.
That's what we want for people to be genuinely connected so that they are grow up into maturity here within the body, and so that they help us to grow up into maturity as well.