Won't you partner with us, friend? If you have never been part of a church family or are looking for one to join, our doors and our hearts are always open for you. We desire every soul who walks into our chapel to partner with Lakeview Community as a fully engaged active member by embracing the four pillars of our church. *We do not discriminate nor treat non-members differently than full members of our community. Everyone is treated with utmost respect and love regardless, and all have the same access to everything. Membership is purely a tool for us to grow deeper into our life with God, and as the ocean of God's love for us is so incredibly deep, why not dive in and see?
(1) TRUTH: Know you are loved more than you can ever imagine
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - ROMANS 5:8
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
- 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-15
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
- 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-15
Commit to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Jesus Christ is for you (Ephesians 3:18-19). Although imperfectly knowing, although progressively growing, we ask each member to keep this constantly in their hearts. Nothing can separate us from the grip of God to bring us to the knowledge of the glory of His love in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4-6), who died and rose again on behalf of us.
(2) GRACE: Know you are clean no matter who you were, where you've been, nor what you've done
Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” - LUKE 7:44-49
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. - 1 JOHN 2:12
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. - 1 JOHN 2:12
Commit to know you are declared a clean and righteous child of the one true living God. We are separated from God by our sins. Sin is the nature we have that resists God and loves our worth. All have sinned. All have rejected God. Only by grace, God turns to sinful mankind and declares - you are clean, you are righteous, you are forgiven! While we were still in our sins, God sent Himself into the world in the person of Jesus Christ to carry our sins to the cross and put them to death. No sin is too big nor too far out of reach for God. We ask each member to stop glorifying their sin and start embracing God's grace, turning to Him in repentance with godly guilt over shameful self-condemnation. We ask each member to know the declaration of the gospel, that they are forever clean in Christ, so keep on growing in His love over you and your love for Him.
(3) COMMUNITY & CHARACTER: Know you are not alone and you are a work-in-progress, for we were meant to grow in Christ with a local community
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. - EPHESIANS 5:25-26
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. - 1 CORINTHIANS 12:14-27
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. - 1 CORINTHIANS 12:14-27
Commit to marrying a local church over dating a variety of churches. Coming to embrace and treasure the love of Jesus is like marriage. There is no privacy in marriage. All is laid bare before your spouse. In so doing, marriage changes us from our core. We learn to serve and be selfless for the sake of our family. This is the likeness of what Jesus has done for us, marrying us permanently by pouring out His life in our place. Yet not only to Himself, Jesus also married us to one another. We are married to each other as much as we are married to Christ, because there is only one God and one Savior to all. The church is a group of sinners learning to love each other as Christ has loved them. For Jesus, it is not enough to live privately with Him. There is no lone-ranger follower of Jesus. We need each other. Every person in the local church community is important. Every person is needed for our spiritual growth in holiness. By our imperfect commitments to stay in a local church community, Jesus' unbreakable commitment to us is realized. We realize what a strange and wonderful thing it is - how a group of different people can coexist in such holy love for each another. Therefore, we ask each member to know you are not alone in this journey with Christ. Your spiritual growth is married to each individual in the local church, who has a unique role in maturing you more into the image of Christ. We can see the beauty of Christ's community here at Lakeview through three areas:
- Attendance: In order to experience life together in a gospel-centered community, we have to show up and be available consistently 3 out of the 4 weeks in a month. If extenuating circumstances arise to miss more time, we ask each member to report those circumstances to the Pastor and spiritual leaders so that they are aware of the absences.
- Acknowledgment: As the portrait of marriage is used of Christ and His church, members are to be fully committed to only one local church, as a husband is committed to only one beloved wife. This means that each member acknowledges the current Pastor to be their primary teacher and shepherd over all other outside voices/teachings/pastors, by respecting, supporting, submitting, confiding in, and entrusting in the God-given spiritual authority gifted to the Pastor. The same is true for the elected servant-leaders. The Pastor is to be supported by the servant-leadership team and the members are to support the ministry of the servant-leadership team.
- Action: We ask each member to find ways to use their unique spiritual gifts to serve the community. A spiritual gift is anything and everything we use and do to bring glory to God. We may have inherent natural talents - although not spiritual gifts in and of themselves, inherent talents can be transformed into a spiritual gift when they are used for the purposes of God in blessing others with the gospel. We serve by giving the tithe - the tenth of our income - and additional offerings of thankfulness and love for ministry needs. We serve by coming early to welcome each other to the church community. We serve by helping in administrative needs. We serve by preparing for the worship experience and contributing to worshipful elements in our corporate service. We serve by giving testimonies of God's deliverance and work in our lives. We serve by singing a new song to the Lord. We serve by staying for fellowship to spend time with one another - talking, listening, exhorting, celebrating, even grieving together. We serve by keeping our church facility clean, organized, and safe. We serve by praying for each other and the nations lost without Christ. There are truly an unlimited number of arenas to serve that defy our imagination and creativity.
(4) GLORY: Know the authority and authenticity of what is in the Book.
We ask each member to keep an open mind to grow their spiritual insight into the twelve doctrinal statements of Lakeview Community Church that reveal the glory of God through the Word of God.
- Only the sixty-six books of both Old and New Testaments from Genesis to Revelation constitute the divinely inspired (sourced in God) and inerrant (truthfully communicated by God without error) words of God in the first-hand original autographs. God used human authors with their various characteristics and experiences, alongside different literary genres, to accurately convey the whole of His message to mankind.
- There is a God, only one God, and no one else like Him existing eternally in three distinct co-equal persons as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- Jesus, eternally generated from the Father as the Son - never born a son but always the Son from eternity past - became a sinless man without ceasing to be the full substance of God, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful men.
- Jesus rose from the dead after dying completely by crucifixion on a Roman cross. Jesus rose out of death into a full immortal body and ascended back to heaven, being seated at the right hand of the Father, forever worthy to be exalted as LORD and Savior (Christ; Messiah).
- The holy Spirit came forth from the Father and the Son to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. The holy Spirit came to regenerate, sanctify, comfort and seal those who believe in Jesus Christ.
- Mankind is totally depraved in that of himself he is utterly unable to remedy his lost condition. Yet it is precisely this depravity that drove God to love over hate sinners in a fallen world. God so loved depraved mankind that He did not withhold sending His one and only Son to them.
- Salvation is a gift of God brought to man by grace and received through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose atoning blood was shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.
- Water baptism is to be given for believers, symbolizing the believer's union in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- The Lord's Supper is to be regularly observed as a commemoration of Jesus' body and blood poured out for all mankind to have new resurrected life.
- The life of the believer is to be separated from the world by consistent, sanctifying, sacred conduct before God and man, and is to be in the world as a life-giving light. This conduct includes – but not limited to – areas of alcohol (drunkenness and casual drinking that stumbles the weaker in faith), smoking, drugs, coarse speech, sexual immorality (homosexuality, adultery, sexual assault, voyeurism/exhibitionism etc.), violence, racism, discrimination of any kind. According to Scripture, these are areas of misconduct needing to be redeemed with God's sanctifying help and power. *However, our doors always remain open with a warm welcome to all regardless of background, longing for all to come and see an alternative freedom the gospel offers us to exercise with a greater cause to live for in the gospel.
- Marriage is a sacred creation of God between one man and one woman, uniting one man to one woman until the death of that woman he has married, and vice versa (one woman to one man until the death of that man she has married). Marriage is purposed to display Christ’s promise-keeping love for His beloved church through a husband’s enduring love for his wife, alongside the church’s joyful surrender to Christ in a wife’s glad support and submission to her husband's godly leading and love. We believe the goal of marriage is to uphold a higher love for Jesus, learning to love like Him, to be a stronger force for the gospel through complementary servanthood, and to bear children of faith - by discipleship of those weaker in faith within the local church, or by legally adopting children in need of a Christ-centered home within a calling for adoption, or by bearing biological children - who will carry the message of the gospel to the next generation.
- The Lord Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and with a full resurrected body.
11am Sunday, 2nd Floor Chapel
8257 W Harrison St. Niles, IL 60714
Lakeview Community Church of Niles, Illinois * voyage to paradise
8257 W Harrison St. Niles, IL 60714
Lakeview Community Church of Niles, Illinois * voyage to paradise