During our recent pastors’ conference, participants rated different aspects of their churches’ health. Since “Church Membership Process” received the lowest ratings overall, let’s give it some thought.
We’ll start with a brief overview of why we practice church membership to begin with. Though you won’t find a Bible passage commanding it; you will find that obedience to the Bible’s teaching necessitates it.
One of the clearest examples of this is Jesus’ teaching about church discipline in Matthew 18, but since I hope to write in more detail about this passage soon, let’s focus on some other areas of the Christian life that benefit from a healthy church membership process.
Church Membership Helps Us Participate in Pastoral Ministry
Hebrews 13:17 says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” Pastors need to know for whom they are responsible; Christians need to know who their pastors are, so they know to whom they are supposed to submit. Pastors cannot assume full pastoral responsibility for every person who passes through their church; Christians cannot submit to every Christian leader. Church membership clarifies these relationships.
Church Membership Helps Us Submit to the Holy Spirit
1 Corinthians 12 teaches that the Holy Spirit empowers Christians with certain gifts to do specific work among the church. Like a child discovers how to ride a bike by peddling, we can only discover our spiritual gifts by serving other Christians. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Church membership gives us a clearly defined arena in which to use our gifts. Without it, we’ll be unlikely to discover or use our spiritual gifts.
Church Membership Helps Us Grow as Christians
Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” We do not grow more like Christ in isolation from one another. We grow together, or not at all.
It’s every Christian’s job to build up the body of Christ. Joining a church is stepping onto a specific worksite in this great building project. It establishes the prioritized group of people we will build up in Christ.
Church Membership Helps Us Remain Committed to Christ
God warns us: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12-13).
We need mutual exhortation to avoid being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Church membership protects us from drifting away from Christ by focusing our exhortation efforts and ensuring no one is left behind. We will find it easy to exhort our Christian friends. But we’ll be prone to forget those who do not easily make friends or naturally fit in. These would be vulnerable to quietly fading away from Jesus apart from a committed relationship with a body of Christians.
Church Membership Helps Us Obey Jesus’ Fellowship Commands
Many of Jesus’ commands require committed relationships with other Christians. He gave nearly 60 “one another” commands like “be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50) and “love one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 12:20). Living by these fellowship commands sets us apart from the rest of the world. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
Because this lifestyle is countercultural, we need a healthy church membership practice to help us live this way.
- The world encourages independence; church membership facilitates interdependence
- The world encourages autonomy; church membership facilitates mutual submission
- The world encourages customization; church membership facilitates cooperation
- The world encourages consumerism; church membership facilitates service
- The world encourages mobility; church membership facilitates presence
- The world encourages individualism; church membership facilitates community
Like airplanes need engines to fight gravity, Christians need spiritual disciplines to fight the pull of the world. Church membership is the spiritual discipline that makes fellowship possible.
Church Membership Helps Us Remain Committed to One Another
Although 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is often read at weddings, it’s actually about our relationships with other Christians:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Our fellow Christians will test our patience and tempt our egos. Their ways will often contradict our ways. They’ll irritate and wrong us. Yet we cannot leave them because of it. In fact, we’re commanded to bear with them, to endure and to love them.
It takes commitment to love like this. It’s easy to stick together when we’re getting along. But what about when we’re not getting along? What keeps us together when we face hard relational issues that require radical Christian love?
There are so many churches in our area of the country that it would be easy to leave for another church when relationships in our church become difficult. Church membership helps keep us committed to one another during these times when Christian fellowship is at its most Christian, when Christ-like love is best displayed.
These are just a few reasons church membership is an important practice for the church. What am I missing? Share in the comments.