Membership Matters

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At the beginning of the year, we celebrated 15 years as a church. I began posting a series of videos and have plans for more that will help us again to consider why we have done and continue to do some of the things we do.

It's taken me longer to get this done than I anticipated, but today is the first of a short series on church membership.

Why Practice Church Membership?
Does it really matter if we "join" a church? Is church membership really a biblical practice? Isn't a profession of faith in Jesus enough? Isn't it Jesus' work to make us members of His body sufficient? Why should churches practice church membership, and why should Christians join a church?

If we're honest, there isn't a clear biblical command to organize churches according to members, regular attenders, and visitors. There isn't a clear explanation or description of church membership as we practice it today, either. However, there are plenty of examples in the New Testament that local congregations knew one another and who belonged to that congregation.

So, there may not be a biblical mandate to practice church membership in the Scripture. But, a healthy church membership process is a wise application of biblical teaching and truth given to God's new covenant people.

First, let's define it. What is church membership? We could settle for the description that it is a wise application of biblical teaching, but that doesn't help us understand it. So, what is it?

Relationship and Responsibility

Church membership is first a formal relationship. In the same way that the relationship between Jesus and His people is not merely an acquaintance, neither is church membership. Some examples that help us understand the formal nature of these relationships can be seen in the following examples:

  • Church Discipline/Excommunication – How does the church discipline process of Matt 18 work if there is no formal understanding of a relationship between church members? At the first level, the person sinned against surely can go to the one who sinned without a formal relationship. But, when it is time to bring in trustworthy witnesses, where do we turn for that? At the level in which a person is to bring it before the church, who is that, if not a local congregation, that formally recognizes one another as people who belong to one another? But, to go one step further, if every effort to call people in sin to repentance does not work, the final expectation is excommunication, to treat the person as if they are not part of the body of Christ at all. Paul faces the challenge in the church in Corinth. He calls the church to withdraw fellowship from the person in sin. If these are just informal relationships, their loss would not carry the significance the New Testament assigns to them.
  • Pastors shepherd the flock/Church submits to her leaders – How will pastors serve in light of Peter's instruction to "shepherd the flock among you." If there is no clear delineation between who is in that flock and who isn't. Further, what Elders should Christians submit to if there isn't a clear membership process? Should we encourage every church member to submit to every church leader everywhere? No, of course not. That's impossible. Though the church is universal, individual church members aren't. The instruction for Christians to submit to their leaders (Heb 13:17) is based on the fact that they have been given responsibility to watch over their souls. Obviously, this does not refer to the podcast preacher, televangelist, or arena crusader. This instruction is referring to the pastors of a local church caring for the people in that local church.

Church membership is a formal relationship that comes with responsibility.

It starts with an individual's relationship to Jesus. He has done all the work that makes the relationship possible. But, the individual is responsible for faith and following Jesus.
Membership in the church also comes with responsibility.

  • Responsible to live for God's glory – Our relationship with the Lord makes us responsible to Him and each other to live for His glory. To the church in Rome and the church in Corinth, Paul encouraged believers to limit their freedoms for the sake of those less mature in Christ. He also reminded the church in Corinth that as they act in sin, it can affect the whole body of Christ (1 Cor 6:12-20). So, for the good of the whole, we are each responsible to live for God's glory.
  • Responsible for loving/serving one another – Paul compared belonging to a church with being a part of a body. There is an interconnectedness and interdependence. Each part is responsible to do for the others its own part, and each part needs the other parts to fulfill their purpose. To the church in Ephesus, the instructions in the second half of the letter direct us to live with one another in mind. It could be summed up by saying that "living worthy of the calling to which we have been called" is loving, serving, and blessing one another.
  • Responsibility to know and be known by one another – how does any of this work if we are loosely affiliated people that happen to attend a church service every so often? No, the New Testament has no concept of a church that views its interactions together as loosely as eventgoers. These are people who know one another. Who do life together closely enough that they can be deeply blessed by one another, see each other growing in Christ-like maturity, and even see sin patterns that need to be addressed.

Church membership is a formal relationship that comes with responsibility.