The Church is a community of “members.” In order to build a community that fulfills God’s design for the Church we need to have healthy participation in the various relationships that make up a church.

The Church can be defined along two axes. As the “body of Christ” the Church’s identity is defined vertically. As the “fellowship of believers” the Church may also be defined horizontally. But the vertical relationship is foundational to the horizontal and is its fountainhead. The focus of this session is to understand the Church's calling in light of Church’s vertical relationship.

These are the notes from the first of the five membership class sessions. In this first part, we first set the discussion in the context of the challenges posed by the culture in which we live. Secondly, we orient ourselves to think about the church according to the great work that God has been doing throughout history.