These questions can serve as guides as we think biblically about what it means to be a congregation. Popular opinion encourages us to find a church where we feel comfortable, think the same way and have the same social values as other members. But the Bible emphasizes the Christian community as a place where people with different values can learn from one another, where conflicts can be addressed, where enemies can learn to forgive and reconcile. The gospel calls us rather to welcome everyone as God welcomed us, breaking down barriers to discover the unity of God's diversity.
Churches are so afraid of losing members that pastors become mere business administrators.
But Acts 6 shows that the apostles selected other people to handle the administration so they could devote themselves to the Word and prayer. 1 Thessalonians 5 emphasizes that all Christians should rebuke and encourage one another. Church marketers urge us to ask how a church's programs meet our needs. But Scriptures say we weren't made part of the body of Christ for what we can get out of it. We are called into mission by God who created and elected us, empowered by Christ's presence in our lives to extend and build up God's kingdom, endowed by the Spirit with gifts, equipped by the teaching and preaching of the church's leaders to use those gifts.