All In Week 1: Presence

When we commit to church membership, we promise to be faithful to the church with our presence, but what does that really mean?  Does it mean we show up on Sunday mornings?  Or is it more than that? We examine God's call to self-denial and our charge to take up our cross and follow him no matter where we happen to be present.

Matthew 8:34-38

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.35For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.36What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?37Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”