What does First B Jackson teach about church membership?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on church membership starts with what the church actually is before it gets to what members are supposed to do. Pastor Van's teaching through Ephesians 4:1-16 laid out that the unity believers share is not something they create on their own. God establishes it. But it is something any one person can damage, and that weight belongs to everyone who has said yes to Christ and joined themselves to a local body. The qualities Paul lists alongside that calling, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, are not a membership checklist so much as a description of what it looks like to let Christ's lordship shape the way you treat the people sitting around you.
Pastor Josh's follow-up message pressed on what belonging to a body actually costs and produces. Working through Ephesians 4:12, he showed that the gifts Christ places in the church through its leaders exist to fine-tune each person toward their particular fit, not to produce identical Christians. The Greek picture behind 'equipping' is an exact adjustment, like bringing a dial into precise focus. That means membership is not passive. The people doing the equipping need to see those they serve as saints, people already declared holy by what Christ did, because that changes how you approach someone. And the people being equipped are expected to show up as workers, the Greek root behind 'ministry' being the same word behind deacon, people who kick up dust and get things done.
The body image from 1 Corinthians 12 ran through both messages as the practical test of all of it. No part of the body is unnecessary, and what happens to one part registers everywhere else. Pastor Josh named people in the congregation who were suffering and others who were celebrating to make that concrete. Church membership, in the teaching at First B, is less a status to hold and more a body to belong to, where each person's particular contribution matters and where no one carries the weight alone.
Taught from Ephesians 4:11-13 · Ephesians 4:1-16 · 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 · Ephesians 4:12 · 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
1 Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don’t want you to be ignorant.
2 You know that when you were heathen, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.
3 Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God’s Spirit says, “Jesus is accursed.” No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” but by the Holy Spirit.
4 Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- April 26, 2026 Fine Tuning the Saints The pastor teaches Ephesians 4:11-13, showing how God equips every believer with gifts for real ministry, whether at church, at work, or in the community.
- April 19, 2026 Walk Worthy of the Calling Ephesians 4 opens with a call to walk worthy of Christ, exploring unity, spiritual gifts, and what it means to grow up together as one body.
Mentioned along the way
- August 11, 2019 Consider Jesus Ray McDaniel walks through Hebrews 3:1-6, calling believers to carefully and decisively fix their minds on Jesus, the apostle and high priest who is greater than Moses.
- December 30, 2018 God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Timidity The pastor opens 2 Timothy showing how God gives believers not timidity but power, love, and a sound mind to face the future boldly as the new year begins.
- February 12, 2017 Christ in You, the Hope of Glory Colossians 1 sermon on what Paul meant by "filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions," and how believers carry the gospel forward through their own suffering and witness.
- May 31, 2015 Go and Tell John the Things Which You Hear and See Pastor Ray returns from a mission trip to Guatemala and ties what the team witnessed there to John the Baptist's question from prison: "Are you the coming one?"
- November 30, 2014 The Message of the Cross Is Where It's At A review of 1 Corinthians traces one steady theme through every chapter: the message of the cross is foolishness to some, but God's power to all who believe.