During a telephone conversation with a friend a while ago an interesting thought sprang to my mind.
Most of us have heard of fire drills. It simply means a test run to see how people will respond in event of a real fire.
Most offices require people to ?sign in? when reporting for work. Visitors may also be given identity badges. All these measures are necessary in accounting and ascertaining who is present in a building during a fire drill. Of course the signing in also has other benefits.
The church is no different. However, because ?signing in? is voluntary and not mandatory many neglect to sign in altogether. What do I mean by signing it?
I am talking about making yourself known and accountable. Some people attend church but do not allow the church to attend to them. They skilfully sidestep all commitment, do not identify themselves with the church and keep a safe distance from anyone within the church that may require their services.
They unconsciously, or maybe consciously, make themselves loners in a crowd. They are like a person who sneaks into a building and then gets upset when nobody notices his absence at the roll call during the fire drill.
God has placed pastors in the church for a reason. They have a responsibility to guide the sheep; lets make their job easy.
Churches have different approaches or structures to ensure they can account for the sheep. You know the structure in your local church, plug in so you can be accounted for. Otherwise how can anyone ask about your welfare if they do not know you are there?
On the other hand, if the system of accountability does not work, i.e. you signed in but still are not accounted for. Then that is a different story. At least the fault does not lie with you.
1 Corinthians 14: 40 says, ?Let all things be done decently and in order?. As there is order in the workplace, so is there order in God?s house. Lets plug into the structure in our local church, so we can be a partaker of the blessing. This will make it easy for our shepherds to account for us.